§ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap. 
Shelf 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




UMfty 



/ 



MRS. GROTE. 



MRS. GROTE. 



A SKETCH. 



BY 



LADY EASTLAKE. 



LONDON : 

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, 

1880. 

[All rights reserved, \ 



LONDON : 

BRADBURY, AG NEW, & CO., PRINTER5, WH1TEFRIAKS. 



JESSIE LEWIN, 

THE STAY AND COMFORT OF MRS. GROTE'S DECLINING YEARS, 
THIS WORK, 
WHICH SHE ENCOURAGED AND ASSISTED, 



PREFACE. 

In presenting these few pages to the 
world, it is just to record how little 
encouragement they have derived from 
Mrs. Grote's own bequeathed words. For, 
in a memorandum written in February, 
1878, and addressed to her executors, con- 
cerning the treatment of her papers, she 
expresses the doubt that " any biography 
could be satisfactorily put together. And, 
further, I have lived long enough to recog- 
nize the futility of all attempts to prolong 
the memory of individuals, even of those 
who have attracted a large measure of 
public attention and interest, for more than 
a few years after their disappearance from 



vi 



PREFACE. 



the scene. Thus, while I do not abso- 
lutely forbid the effort, I repeat my persua- 
sion of its inutility." Though, therefore, 
this small work represents no biography, 
yet the writer feels that something of the 
same conviction of its inutility is implied 
by the above-quoted lines. It is, accord- 
ingly, in contravention of these words, but 
in the belief that a nearer view of this lady's 
character will belie them, that this tribute 
to her memory is thus attempted by one 
deeply indebted to her. 

This work was ready for publication in 
the Spring, but delayed by the publisher's 
wish, on account of the agitated state of 
the political atmosphere. 



July, 1SS0. 



CONTENTS. 

♦ 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. — ANALYSIS OF CHARACTER ..... I 

II. — FAMILY — EARLY LIFE — MARRIAGE . . . . 2J 

III. — NOTE-BOOK — REMARKS ON POOR . . . -49 

IV. — INTEREST IN POLITICS . . . ... 72 

V. — LOVE OF ART — KINDNESS TO ARTISTS ... 83 

VI. — INTERCOURSE AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH FRENCH 

AND OTHER FOREIGN FRIENDS . . . . IOI 

VII. — SPECIMENS OF LETTERS — POWERS OF SYMPATHY — 

OLD AGE— DEATH I42 



MRS. GROTE. 



CHAPTER I. 

In voluntarily undertaking to give some 
description of the mind and character of the 
distinguished lady who has passed from among 
us, no delusion is entertained as to the nature 
of the task, nor of the difficulty of justifying the 
reasons for attempting it. Few things demand 
more judgment or delicacy than the endeavour 
to reconstruct the features of a strong and 
original individuality, so as to satisfy those to 
whom they have been the source of ever fresh 
and familiar study, and to impress those who 
enjoyed no such privilege with the sense of their 
truth and consistency. Mrs. Grote was not 
famous, in the usual acceptation of the word. 

B 



2 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. I. 



She was no celebrated authoress ; she had 
performed no extraordinary actions ; she had 
personally taken part in no great public event. 
Her fame, if such it could be called, was con- 
fined to a comparatively small sphere, and 
rested on grounds which never took her beyond 
the limits of private life. Nevertheless, the fact 
remains, that she was so remarkable a woman 
both in character and attainments, as to call 
as strictly for the tribute of a record as if she 
had been historically eminent. And it is the 
more necessary to draw up this humble sketch 
while her grand individuality still lives in loving 
memories. For her published writings, how- 
ever masterly some of them may be, render but 
scant justice to the whole woman, and scarcely 
any to that part of her in which she may be 
said to have had no rival. 

From the many who never knew this lady the 
question is often heard, " What kind of a woman 
was Mrs. Grote?" the little they have heard 
of her social brilliancy not serving in any way 
to supply the rest of the portrait; indeed, 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



3 



generally misleading in the conception of it. 
It is also the more superfluous to enter into 
any regular notice of her life — one devoid of 
striking events, and already comprised as to 
outline in that of Mr. Grote drawn up by her- 
self — for it is not in any outward circumstances 
that we must seek a key to that superiority with 
which none came in contact without acknow- 
ledging it. Hers was one of those ruling minds 
which make and shape their own circumstances, 
but of which it would be vain to pronounce how 
much they owe to their Creator, and how much 
to themselves. For no one could listen for half- 
an-hour to Mrs. Grote without perceiving how 
nature and education mixed, and crossed, and 
lapped over in. every word and sentiment she 
uttered ; her sense, her humour, and her power 
ever assimilating the rich and varied mate- 
rials they alternately summoned, moulded and 
played with. 

It is true she belonged to the choicest portion 
of the English social scale — the educated and 
wealthy gentry class — and that she was united 

L 2 



4 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. t 



in marriage to a man of the highest distinction, 
morally and intellectually, who helped to de- 
velelop her reasoning powers, and to enrich 
her knowledge. But if the one might be called 
her good fortune — though, in whatever position 
of life, nothing could have kept that mind empty 
or shallow — the other was no happy accident, 
for she was not the woman to have allied her- 
self to any man not, as she acknowledged 
Mr. Grote to be, her " master/' In a letter to 
a friend, Feb. 7, 1833, who alluded to her being 
"run after," she says, " I live with one so much 
my master, that the true feeling of conceit is 
effectually stopped out. I am made sensible 
of my inferiority most days in the week." 

It is not under the category of Genius that we 
must seek the solution of Mrs. Grote's character. 
She possessed fire, imagination, and fancy ; but 
if the strict definition of genius be involved in 
the term " creative power," she has left nothing 
to vindicate that claim. She adored genius 
where she found it with a power of rare and 
ardent recognition ; but she never coveted its 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



5 



distinctions and characteristics for herself. Nor, 
when the true healthiness and range of her 
mind is clearly understood will this verdict be 
thought any disparagement, but rather the 
reverse. Genius, with its divine inspirations, 
may be left to find its way to the admiration of 
the few, and in the end to the acknowledgment 
of all ; but, as regards the common aims of life, 
it implies a being of an imperfect order. Genius 
is the sport of itself, not the .master : strong as 
instinct in some respects, helpless as folly in 
others ; unequal, emotional, childlike, even un- 
conscious. Not one of these definitions could 
be applied for a moment to Mrs. Grote ; the 
most equable, self-possessed, practical and 
shrewd of women; mistress of herself, and the 
sport of no earthly being ; with a perfect con- 
sciousness of her own powers, and an entire 
command over them. In truth, the great at- 
traction of this lady consisted in the fact that 
there was nothing exceptional in her. The 
difference between her and other men and 
women was one of degree, not of kind. The 



6 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. I. 



eminence on which she stood was lost in no 
clouds. All were free to enter on the road that 
led to it, though they might not climb so high. 
However remarkable the part she played, there 
was no mystery in it. It was one secret of her 
social influence that her gifts and greatness 
discouraged no one. She understood the whole 
scale of the human mind ; and the humblest 
mind in return, if only true, could in some 
measure understand her. It followed, therefore, 
that while all emptiness and affectation, falsity 
and meanness were sure to be uncomfortable in 
her presence, and generally kept out of her w^ay, 
no one attempted to deceive her. It took time, 
it is true, to convince most people that her 
grand and haughty manner, tinctured with 
formality, concealed a heart of the warmest and 
largest sympathies; but once "the alarm" was 
over, no one ever more surely attracted the 
confidence of those so fortunate as to be ad- 
mitted to her society. It may be said to have 
been part of her earthly mission that hearts 
were bared before her, with the certainty of 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



7 



being kindly understood and wisely counselled. 
Those, indeed, who knew her best, trusted her 
most ; and the feeling extended to all classes 
and ages. Friends depended on her; children 
delighted in her ; servants stayed with her ; 
the very dogs pined for her ; all obeyed her.* 
But there was, perhaps, no neutral ground on 
the way. You feared her, till you loved her. 

Mrs. Grote said of a well-known gifted woman, 
of ill-regulated mind, " She lacks proportion 
and harmony of parts." The very reverse con- 
veys her character. No gift with her was at 
the expense of another. Her splendid intellect 
was never the excuse for the smallest lowering 
of the moral standard. Her universal attain- 
ments never diverted her from the homeliest 
duties. No humdrum woman, pottering after 
household trivialities, and caring for nothing 



* A charming little boy, six years of age, a neighbour's child, 
whom she noticed and talked to in her frank, genial manner, 
hearing something said about "friends," said, "/have got a friend, 
too ; it's Mrs. Grote." There were then eighty years between 
them ! 



8 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. I. 



else, knows so much of common matters as she 
did. Nothing was too low for her attention, 
whether in kitchen, store-room, work-room, 
stable, garden, or field. She knew how every- 
thing should be done, from the darning of a 
sock, to the building of a house. Had Mr. Grote 
married the most ignorant simpleton in the 
world, his wardrobe could not have been kept 
in better order. "When removing to a part of 
Surrey, where she had previously been un- 
known, the neighbours agreed that such a 
learned lady would be above knowing what 
went on in her own establishment. " You are 
much mistaken," said one better informed. 
"Mrs. Grote will know when a hoop is off a 
pail in her back kitchen and, he might have 
added, " and the best way of putting it on too." 
No one was so practical in every day matters. 
There was always a better way of doing the 
commonest things which she could teach ; and 
no lesson was without its point and fun. A 
gentleman w T rote to the Times lately, proposing 
that people should devote one day in their 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



9 



Christmas holidays to returning borrowed books. 
He should have known Mrs. Grote's receipt — 
" I'll trouble you for a sovereign ;" and the 
pledge was ticketed and kept in her purse till 
the volume was returned. 

Nor was there any exaggeration in this. How 
such matters were compatible with her personal 
devotion to literature, languages, and the fine 
arts ; her correspondence with the choicest 
spirits at home and abroad ; her habits of 
society, and her interest, literally, in all that 
went on in the world, from the fate of nations 
to the fluctuations of the weather, from the 
leaders of men to the winner of the Derby, — how 
all this was made possible, can only be solved 
by that marvellous habit of order, which, as by 
the touch of a wand, relegated everything about 
her to its right time and place. The good 
fairies who served her were two — Order and 
Memory. Between them nothing she possessed 
was wasted, or suffered to get out of repair. 
Her mind was always " sorted/' She could 
find what she wanted in that noble organ as 



10 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. t 



surely as in her house, and never lost time or 
temper in missing or hunting. And with order 
came of course punctuality — hurry and litter 
were alike foreign to her. With a nature thus 
constituted and educated, it was natural that 
she should protest against the perpetual excite- 
ment that has become the great business and 
craving of the present day. She disliked the 
restlessness of the higher classes, and of the 
young ; in her words, u always dependent on 
outer impressions ; never able to live a day 
on themselves." She was thrown by the natural 
force of great gifts and qualities into positions 
and friendships of exceptional interest and dis- 
tinction ; but, as to her own principles of life, 
Keble's lines might have been her motto : — 

* ' The common round, the daily task, 
Will furnish all we ought to ask." 

She said to a friend of ardent temperament, 
"You are fourteen years younger than I, but 
you will wear yourself out sooner." — "Car vous 
voulez toujours des emotions fortes' 3 

It need hardly be said how instructive were 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



ii 



the society and example of this lady, especially 
to the young. The contact with her seldom left 
them as it found them. They witnessed the 
compatibility of great learning with sound com- 
mon sense ; of the most brilliant and playful 
powers with the strictest rules of conduct. She 
did not preach or lecture, but many a career in 
life has been influenced by her wise and pithy 
sayings. Who that knew her has not had reason 
to thank her for such maxims as these, " Learn 
to say No — it will save you a world of trouble in 
your life." " Never, if you can possibly help it, 
break an engagement once made — you know not 
what other engagements you derange." " Keep 
to simple and wholesome pleasures, they have 
no excess." "The household virtues are the 
basis of everything." She would also quote 
Ary Scheffers trenchant "wtot" "71 le faut" 
as an argument against which there was no 
appeal. 

So prominent a part did the common things of 
our daily existence take in Mrs. Grote's mind, 
that it is curious now to turn to a record of the 



12 MRS. GROTE. [ch. i. 

first impressions she made on Sydney Smith — 
this impression being succeeded, as time ce- 
mented their friendship, by, perhaps, a wider 
perception of her many-sidedness and a fuller 
gauge of it than any other man was capable of 
forming. Writing to Sir Roderick Murchison 
in 1842, after a visit on her part to Combe-Florey, 
he says, "We have had Mrs. Grote here; Gro- 
tius could not come. The basis of her character 
is rural, and she was intended for a country 
clergyman's wife ; but, for whatever she was in- 
tended, she is an extraordinarily clever woman, 
and we all liked her very much." 

One natural advantage which most people will 
envy her, — and which sometimes no culture or 
habit of society can ensure — we will allow the 
lady we are endeavouring to describe — She was 
never shy. This gain of a loss, was of a 
piece with the indomitable courage of her 
nature, which had something royal in its 
strength and self-possession. She had always 
her grand wits at her command, and saw at once 
with enviable readiness what to do or say. 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



13 



There was a presence and bearing about her 
which at once impressed a stranger — you would 
have selected her amongst any number as the 
woman, if not of highest rank, yet as most enti- 
tled to deference. Her person was tall and 
stately, her face handsome, with peculiarly deli- 
cate tints ; her blue eyes so large and luminous 
that someone likened them to "carriage lamps" ; 
and above them rose that noble pile of head 
which is as the crown of great intellect. Her 
manners were formal, but it was a mistake to 
call them old-fashioned, for all belonging to 
Mrs. Grote was her own ; she imitated nothing, 
past or present. It was rather the result of a 
calm and proud certainty of power, and sense of 
self dependence. 

Mrs. Grote has been likened both to Madame 
de Stael and to Madame de Sevigne. It is 
evident, however, that a comparison between 
three women belonging to different countries, 
and even, it may be considered, to different cen- 
turies, cannot be of any close kind. Each, too, 
in this instance strongly represented the chief 



14 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. T. 



character of her own times, however superior to 
it ; each, more strongly still, an independent 
originality. Still, minds may be classified in 
their higher qualities, intellectual and moral, 
however differing in sphere of action or form of 
expression ; and it may be said without fear of 
dispute that in power of reasoning, clearness of 
insight, generosity, courage, and what has been 
termed "the despotism of speech/' Mrs. Grote' s 
mind stood on the same level with that of 
Necker s daughter. These gifts, too, were ap- 
plied equally by each to the same great cause of 
the freedom of mankind, and the justice due to 
the humblest of their fellow creatures. Nor did 
Mrs. Grote need to realise the pangs of exile to 
detest the Corsican tyrant whose petty wrath no 
woman would more infallibly have excited. She 
and Mr. Grote not only abhorred the man from 
whom Madame de Stael suffered wrong, but they 
erected the opinion entertained of him by others 
into an invariable test of a mind, soundly con- 
stituted, or not. In minor respects it is easy to 
trace differences between the two women, and 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



15 



these in Mrs. Grote' s favour. Madame de Stael 
had literally a passion for talk, especially her 
own. She longed to measure herself against 
every great man of her time, but more for the 
pleasure of exercising her own powers than for 
testing his. There was nothing she dreaded so 
much as ennui ; nothing she needed so much as 
excitement ; nothing she so little appreciated as 
simple pleasures ; next to talking she loved act- 
ing. In all these respects Mrs. Grote only gains 
by the comparison ; and in two other character- 
istics, of no small significance in a social sense, 
Mrs. Grote w T as the superior. She was a hu- 
morist, and she was a listener ; Madame de 
Stael was neither. The English lady came into 
society as much to hearken as to be heard, and 
she listened to all worthy her attention, and 
especially to her own husband. Knowing what 
she could say if she would, her thoughtful silence 
became a compliment of the highest order. 
What Schiller said of Madame de Stael, namely, 
that she was " all of one piece/' was more 
applicable still to Mrs. Grote, for the moral com- 



i6 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. I. 



pleteness was greater with her. In that pre- 
siding quality which enhances every other — viz., 
the quality of strong common sense, Mrs. Grote 
was as superior to her French rival as she was to 
most men or women. She would have given 
precedence to Madame de Stael, not humbly, 
but proudly, and some may think not justly, in 
intellectual superiority, but she would have 
stickled stoutly for the pas in that finely ba- 
lanced wisdom which turns to happy purpose 
equally the triumphs and the common things 
of life. 

As to the style of conversation peculiar to 
each of these remarkable women, the only way 
by which we can judge that of the two French 
ladies is by their known works : the charm of 
Madame de Sevigne's Letters consisting in its 
likeness to her talk — the power of Madame 
de Stael' s conversation in its likeness to her 
writings. But in Mrs. Grote's case this test 
unhappily fails. Some of her published writings 
give the power and grasp of her mind, but there 
is nothing printed which reflects the wit as well 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



17 



in the wisdom as in the case of Sydney Smith.* 
On the contrary, she even sometimes impresses 
the reader with the sense of a mannerism, the 
furthest removed from her real nature. The 
more reason, therefore, that her contemporaries 
should leave their testimony to her matchless 
talent, and endeavour to recover traces, though 
nothing more, of that the memory of w T hich must 
die with them. It has been justly said that no 
one is master of an art till he can play with it. 
By this rule few have reached the mastery pos- 
sessed by this lady in the art of conversation. 
Who that has hung upon her words has not felt 
the ease of execution which revealed the perfec- 
tion of the accomplishment — the fascinating 
change from grave to gay — from the enuncia- 
tion of solemn truths to the absurdest illus- 
tration of them ; like proving a sum, first by the 
rule of Colenso, and then by the rule of thumb. 
Madame Tesse said of Madame de Stael, "St 
j'etazs rezne je lui ordonnerais de me parler 



* The "Wit and Wisdom of Sydney Smith." 

c 



1 8 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. I. 



toujours." The equivalent to this has often been 
said of Mrs. Grote. Still, one could hardly give 
a name to what one so much enjoyed. Eloquence 
was too stilted a term for what w r as always fresh, 
spontaneous and pre-eminently sincere. There 
was the raciness and clearness and even homeli- 
ness of the English mind coupled with the fitness 
and readiness of the French "esprit." She was not 
witty according to one definition, for the vivacity 
of her ideas never took that form of exaggeration 
which is generally supposed to characterise- wit ; 
it was rather the exactness of her view which 
gave the sense of novelty, and both surprised 
and convinced. She instantly stripped a subject 
of its false colours or flimsy adornment ; walked 
through a fallacy, or tossed over a half truth. 
All she said bore the impress of past reflection 
and present readiness. It was Thought, evolved 
from the depths of a great mind and translated 
at once into the simplest w T ords — the richest 
ore from the mine, put immediately into the 
form most convenient for currency. If the 
discourse fell on subjects of special science, or 



CH. I.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



10 



even on metaphysics, she used the right technical 
terms — otherwise, she took the first that came, 
and those often the homeliest. She called a 
spade a spade, thereby not rarely ruffling the 
small decorums of some minds more tenacious of 
the letter than of the spirit, but who ever heard 
an impure word from her lips, or found her 
tolerating laxity and freedom of speech ? On 
the contrary, there are those who will well re- 
member having been reproved for it. Like 
Madame de Sevigne, too, she had a vocabulary 
of her own — including characteristic names for 
many of her friends — generally enjoyed by the 
bearer as much as by any one else. One knew 
also what she meant by " a porcelain woman" 
or "a pinchbeck man," and what sort of wives 
those were who made "good adjectives" to their 
husbands, — or "good doormats," — or, as in the 
case of a w T ell-known tempestuous character, "a 
good shingle beach to break upon." 

Altogether, in her own estimate of the two 
French ladies it was far more her ambition as a 
woman to be compared with Madame de Sevigne. 

C 2 



20 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. I. 



" The same love of reading/' she would say, 
" the same habit of good society ; and always 
an honest woman." It may be added, the 
same love of the country and enjoyment of 
Nature. Madame de Stael is known to have 
said that she would not cross a room to look at 
a mountain, though she would travel a hundred 
miles to talk to a great man — but "Les Rochers" 
could not be dearer to Madame de Sevigne than 
"The Ridgeway" was to Mrs. Grote ; nor the 
progress of the young trees " haut comme fa" 
more interesting to the one than to the other. 
At the same time if the love of Nature was rarer 
in the case of the high-born French lady, with 
whom such tastes are seldom developed, it must 
be said that our countrywoman enjoyed a coun- 
try life as few even among ourselves do. Who 
ever cultivated a garden with the ardour she did, 
knowing and loving every inch of it ? or watched 
with such zest her apples and roses within her 
"sun-trap," or delighted in her "penny bor- 
ders," a mixture of all hues and sweets together, 
instead of the eternal hexagons or octagons of 



ch. i.] MRS. GROTE. 21 

the same plant and colour, which no one cares 
for and in which " there is nothing to dis- 
cover ? " — or called a friend to the highest 
window in her house to share the glories of a 
sunset, wanting, as she expressed it, " somebody 
to pinch ! " 

There is no doubt that, compared with the 
French celebrities, partly from the progress of 
intelligence, the greater extent of her interests 
and sympathies, and the free institutions under 
which she lived, she covered more ground than 
either of them. But this concession she would 
have made light of. Her chief motive for covet- 
ing comparison with Madame de S£vigne pro- 
ceeded from the rank she ever assigned to the 
moral qualities above the intellectual ones, and 
to her respect for Madame de S6vigne's untar- 
nished character. Who that heard her on one 
occasion can forget the expression with which 
she exclaimed, after much incense burning be- 
fore her, " But it is a poor compliment after all 
that it is not my better part for which I am 
most liked ! " 



22 



MRS. GROTE. 



[ch. i. 



We must now let this lady speak more for 
herself, and endeavour by means of the papers 
and letters she has left, and by the recollections 
of many years, to present her more full length 
to the reader. 



CHAPTER II. 

Dante thus commences his great work : " Nel 
mezzo del cammin di nostra vita/' by which he 
means the age of thirty-five. It was at this age 
that Mrs. Grote drew up a slight autobiography, 
which will assist in the interpretation of her 
character. She was at all times deeply inter- 
ested in the relation between cause and effect on 
individuals, communities, and countries ; in other 
words, in the results of educational impressions, 
bad or good, subtle or direct. " During the last 
eight years of my life/' — that is the period sub- 
sequent to her marriage — " I have acquired, 
partly by application to the best authors who 
have written on the human mind, and partly by 
frequent communion with superior men, such a 
knowledge of the constitution of human nature 



24 



MRS. GROTE. 



[ch. II. 



and thought as to be able to trace to a consider- 
able extent the relations among the phenomena 
of men's actions and sentiments." We here see 
the basis of much of that insight which guided 
her judgment in the domain of morals, whether 
applied to the policy of individuals or Govern- 
ments — the key to that "permanent interest' * 
which in her own words she took " in the ad- 
vancement of the world in all that regards 
improvement in knowledge and virtue." 

Mrs. Grote was an aristocrat in mind and also 
in lineage, especially on her mother s side, and 
she prided herself on coming of a good stock, on 
the principle that " noblesse oblige' 3 M. Guizot 
never made a greater mistake than in speaking 
of her — in his memoirs — as representing the 
"bourgeoisie! 3 But as an individual she might 
have adopted Tennyson's line — 

" Too proud to care from whence I came." 

Harriet Lewin was born ist July, 1792, at a 
place called "The Ridgeway" (whence she 
named her own small property), near South- 



CH. II.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



25 



ampton. Her father, Mr. Thomas Lewin, had 
been in the Civil Service of the East India 
Company at Madras. From the description of 
her father it would seem that she inherited her 
more brilliant powers and intelligence from him 
— whom she describes both as a very fine man, 
and as a true specimen of the fine gentleman of 
the day. After ten young years spent in the 
Indian service, where he had formed intimacies 
with the chief French residents at Pondicherry, 
he returned to Europe in the same vessel 
with a lady of some notoriety,* and lived for 
some time in Paris subsequent to the Peace of 
1782-3. Here he was accustomed to join the 
Royal Hunt at Marly or the Bois de Boulogne 
in his English phaeton, four-in-hand, and, in- 

* It is a curious link between Mrs. Grote and modern French 
history, that in the East Indiaman which conveyed her father, 
Madame Grand — subsequently the wife of Talleyrand, and then 
leaving India on account of irregularities which had caused 
M. Grand to divorce her — was also a passenger. This led to an 
intimacy between Mr. Lewin and her, and they lived at first at 
Paris together. And it is no less a curious feature of the times that 
he settled an annuity upon her which she continued to enjoy after 
she became Princess Talleyrand, and indeed up to the date when 
Mrs. Grote was writing — 1826. 



25 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



troduced by his Pondicherry friends, was re- 
ceived into those aristocratic French circles who 
sported to the last on the brink of the grumbling 
volcano. 

Mrs. Grote's mother was the daughter of 
General Hale, — younger son of an ancient and 
opulent family in Hertfordshire, connected with 
several families of our nobility. He lived in 
habits of society with Lord Chatham, and other 
eminent statesmen of the day. The tendency of 
his mind would seem, however, to have been 
more in keeping with Mr. Grote's modes of 
thought than with hers, for, at the commence- 
ment of the American War of Independence, 
General Hale took a strong democratic turn, 
which interfered with all hopes of advancement 
through his political connexions. He even wrote 
to his eldest son, about to embark at Plymouth 
for service in America, desiring him to lay down 
his commission in the British Army rather than 
bear arms against the injured Colonists — an 
order which arrived too late. He himself had 
been present at the storming of Quebec, and had 



ch. II.] MRS. GROTE. 27 

witnessed the last moments of Wolfe.* He also 
assisted at the taking of Havannah, and was the 
bearer of the despatches announcing that event 
to the English Government. General Hale 
married a beautiful Miss Challoner, of " The 
Priory/' near Guisboro', descended from Sir 
Thomas Challoner, the Regicide. This lady- 
presented her husband with nine sons and eleven 
daughters — the family being headed by twin 
girls, the eldest of whom, Mary, Mrs. Grote's 
mother, married Mr. Lewin before she had at- 
tained the age of sixteen. To this early mar- 
riage, and the large family which ensued, Mrs. 
Grote ascribes the totally undeveloped and 
uninteresting character of her mother, to whom, 
as with most "fond mothers," her younger babes 
were dolls to play with, but her growing children 
never companions to take interest in. It may 
be concluded that Mrs. Grote was a child of 

* Mrs. Grote relates an anecdote (which we give on her authority) 
— namely, that Benjamin West would have introduced her grand- 
father into his picture of the death of Wolfe, only that the young 
soldier could not command so much as ^50, which West required 
as a fee. 



28 MRS. GROTE. [ch. n. 

splendid conformation, for the name given her 
from her earliest years was "The Empress/' 

Mr. Lewin was fond of the sea, and the family 
passed some portion of the year at Torquay, then a 
mere fishing village, where two contiguous homes 
accommodated them, and where he kept a small 
yacht. The journeys between this place and 
" The Ridgeway" were performed in a primitive 
manner. Mrs. Lewin, with nurse and nurslings, 
in a headed chaise on two wheels, groom behind 
on another horse, with saddle-bags, and long 
web-traces, wherewith to assist the chaise-horse 
up the hills, proceeding at the rate of twenty-five 
to thirty miles a day; while the little yacht 
brought the father, governess, and rest of the 
family to the same destination in about the same 
time. She records the hard winter — 1 799-1 800 — 
when sledges were used, and when a brother of 
her mother staying with them, and about to 
proceed to Canada, walked on the snow with 
Canadian snow-shoes. 

The biography is curious as a picture of the 
habits of an English family of the upper middle 



CH. II.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



29 



class of above eighty years ago. Nor can any 
who knew Mrs. Grote for a moment doubt the 
fidelity of the picture there given by herself of 
the child, who so unmistakably became "the 
mother of the woman/' In her own words, 
" I was forward in my studies, full of capacity 
and talents, and of a loving, gay temperament, 
which rose above all suffering, and cheered my 
comrades to mirth and enterprize." Her attach- 
ments were ardent, and generally bestowed on 
grown-up young women, whom she invested 
with every virtue. And her dislikes were equally 
as strong, and chiefly bestowed on a succession 
of governesses ; and especially on one who 
occupied that position in 1804, and who evidently 
enjoyed no sinecure. This lady was deter- 
mined to counteract as far as possible the procli- 
vities her pupil evinced for amusements which 
Miss Beetham (generally styled u the Beetham") 
deemed of an unfeminine nature. These were, 
however, exactly those w r hich the young lady 
especially affected, " having from earliest child- 
hood shown a remarkably energetic disposition, 



50 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



and taken most pleasure in active exercises re- 
quiring bodily agility, nerve, and invention, and 
involving skill, and even some personal danger." 

Her father's grounds were washed by the 
river Itchin ; and when the fishermen landed to 
collect driftwood for fuel, leaving their dirty, 
leaky barks moored to the sedgy shore, Harriet 
and her next sister would rush to the nearest 
boat, and each seizing an oar, " shove out into 
the river for a row," the governess sometimes 
appearing on the scene just too late, and stand, 
ing screaming to them in vain on the strand. 
" And occasionally, when we got into the middle 
of the river, especially in the winter season, the 
wind would drive us in on the mud, whence we 
had to be rescued by the boats of the merchant 
vessels, generally colliers, which lay in the 
stream, or at the wharf at 'Northam/ and 
which towed us into port." " Or we rode horses, 
bare backed (when we could succeed in catch- 
ing them), with a bit of pack-thread round their 
noses." A huge stack of faggots was also a 
resource for hiding, " at the top of which we 



CH. ii.] MRS. GROTE. 31 

lay quiet for hours, making figures in wet clay." 
Harriet also understood how to make big kites, 
and fly them, not unfrequently losing them on 
the tall trees of the Ridgeway woods. And of 
course she was a proficient in climbing trees ; 
and even when in London, and out walking, 
under the charge of the coachman, she would 
exercise her skill " on the old, black, pollarded 
elms in the Green Park, near the basin, by 
Piccadilly, south-west corner. And being fer- 
tile " (we'll be bound) "in resources and expe- 
dients at a pinch, and as a refuge against the 
tedium of existence in London, we used to 
' dazzle 9 with looking-glasses the inmates of 
the upper stories of the Duke of Grafton's house, 
opposite to ours (in Clarges Street), or we flew 
a sort of light paper kite across into their open 
windows, till the Ladies Fitz-Roy lodged a 
complaint against us/' 

After these confessions, we can better under- 
stand the high-spirited woman, who hated all 
precocious proprieties, warmly encouraged active 
sports for girls as well as boys, and especially 



32 



MRS. GROTE. 



[ch. II. 



for both together, and herself dared do all that 
might become a strong, healthy, artless human 
creature ; turning her fine hands to everything ; 
even seizing, as she was once known to do, the 
handles of a certain agricultural implement, and 
herself tracing a furrow. And of one thing we 
may be certain, viz., that she looked back on 
these madcap years with as much satisfaction 
as on any other period of her Lehr Jahren, 
herself illustrating her favourite creed, that 
everything may be hoped from a childhood that 
has displayed " the right faults." 

But the confinement of London to these young 
romps was not of frequent occurrence ; for the 
war kept English families much in their country 
homes, where generally, and especially in those 
parts near the coast, the fear of Buonaparte was 
for years the topic of conversation with their 
neighbours. As the French mothers in the 
time of Marlborough were wont to threaten 
naughty children with "Malbrook," so the chil- 
dren at the Ridgeway used to be told by their 
nursemaids that "Boney" would be sure to 



CH. II.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



33 



catch them if they strayed out of bounds. Nor 
did they ever meet a suspicious-looking vagrant 
in their walks without hearing that he was " a 
French spy." A propos of this period Mrs. Grote 
relates an anecdote, which stirs the blood even 
now. "My father took in the Courier news- 
paper, and never permitted any one to read it 
before himself. One morning in November of 
this year (1805) he ordered me to open and dry 
the paper for him, whilst he was busy buttering 
his hot roll for breakfast. I did not then break- 
fast in the parlour, but often went there at 
papa's breakfast to wish him good morning, 
and kiss him — a ceremony he never dispensed 
with to the last moment of conscious existence. 
As I held the paper before the fire, I was 
attracted by the sight of many lines, printed 
in large capitals. So I read the lines, out 
aloud. I remember the shock it gave to my 
father when I uttered the concluding words. 
The news announced was the naval victory of 
Trafalgar, and the last sentence was, " Lord 
Nelson was killed in the action." 

u 



34 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



She notes that the first emotions of love and 
fear of offending its object were kindled in her 
when about twelve by a younger sister of her 
mother, her aunt, Jane Hale, then twenty. 
" My sister Charlotte was affected in a similar 
manner ; and I remember how we used to com- 
pare notes as to what indications of favour we 
had respectively reason to boast of as proceed- 
ing from our < Deity! It was her injunction 
to study poetry that caused me to attach a 
value to that vein of literature ; and, having 
received as a present from her a copy of Cowper's 
Poems, I began to read them with pleasure, 
although my love of poetry was at that time 
scarcely born within me." There is no doubt 
that she owed much of the training of her in- 
telligence to her father, who was devoted to 
music and to French literature, and enjoyed 
Shakspeare, and other dramatic authors, having 
frequent readings, in which all the family — such 
as were old enough — each took a part. Nor is 
there any reason to doubt that " the Beetham " 
did her duty averagely well as an instructress, 



CH. II.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



35 



and that Harriet received something better 
than that " scrappy education/' too often, she 
lamented, the lot of English girls. 

From a family at Langdown, near Hythe, of 
the name of Tate, she first imbibed the taste for 
that classic music, which she would play by 
heart to the last few months of her life. " It 
was there I learned to take interest in Beet- 
hoven's compositions, which were played con- 
tinually. They were scarcely introduced into 
England at this time; and even by the Tates 
voted almost too scientific and crabbed to be 
generally relished. But I remember that this 
music used to affect my imagination powerfully 
as I listened for hours to it." 

The slender biography extends only to 1805; 
but though no further record by herself exists 
to fill up the years that led to womanhood, it 
is not difficult, with expanding tastes, growing 
attainments, gradual consciousness of power and 
admiration, and with as much fun and frolic 
as in her younger years, only of a cleverer kind, 
to complete in general colours the picture thus 

D 2 



36 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



begun. There are those, too, who still re- 
member the beautiful and enthusiastic young 
woman, with the neat foot and ancle, who was 
"up to everything " — playing, singing, drawl- 
ing, dancing, riding, and driving — no less than 
joking, quizzing, mimicking, and flirting; though 
all in perfect innocence and gaiety of heart, 
far removed from the " fast 33 freedoms that have 
obtained in the present day. 

We obtain a peep of her in Sept. 1817, when 
she visited Paris, and writes a description of 
her impressions to her cousin, and subsequently 
brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Lewin of Eltham : — 

" Every object reminds one of the military 
character of the country, reduced as the troops 
must necessarily be at this time. Sentinels 
posted at the entrance, and soldiers scattered 
through the towns, lounging in their undress 
uniforms, talking nonsense to the country girls, 
and infecting the inhabitants with their leading 
quality — idleness. I have Sterne constantly in 
my fancy. Here are all the incidents and scenes 
necessary to illustrate his inimitable i Senti- 



CH. II.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



37 



mental Journey/ I wished for you very often 
whilst at Paris to enjoy the strokes of character, 
the wonderful versatility and strangeness of the 
French, which we should have been able to 
witness in a snug way We were exceed- 
ingly well lodged in the most agreeable situa- 
tion Paris affords, the windows looking into 
the Place Vendome, where that monument of 
Napoleon's successes, as of his vanity, ornaments 
the centre. The bronze statue of him (which, 
by the way, some artists told me was a master- 
piece) has been removed, and the Bourbon 
ensign, alias a ragged towel, has superseded it. 
We were lucky enough to cut in for a review 
of 30,000 troops in the Champ de Mars, by old 
' Desire ' in person, seated in a cumbrous open 
caleche, drawn by eight horses, the Duchess of 
Angouleme at his side. The troops appeared 
very fine, the artillery well equipped. The 
Garde Royale (ci-devant Imperial Guard) are 
uncommonly fine men, especially the Cuirassiers ; 
and as for the King's body guard, I think it 
impossible to find such a corps in England 



38 MRS. GROTE. [ch. ii. 

for size, mien, and martial air altogether ; but 
these are all men of family, and find their own 
horses .... We went to St. Cloud, Versailles, 
St. Germain, Malmaison, and all places worthy 
of a visit, and for the first time saw buildings 
\v r orthy of the name of Palace, both as to interior 
decoration, and external splendour. We were 
fortunate in having some French acquaintances, 
which afforded us the means of participating in 
French society of the best description, and it 
is really very pleasant pastime ; but, for my 
part, it would fatigue me too much to be always 
strung up as tight as my faculties are capable 
of being. You must never flag, but be con- 
stantly ready to return the fire of your neigh- 
bour, and must be well primed with repartee, 
and well-turned pleasantries. The gallantry of 
the men is very refined ; and though it pervades 
so entirely their behaviour when in company 
with ladies, it is not the least tiresome or 
offensive. I admire the ladies vastly. All those 
we occasionally met were charmingly agree- 
able ; and, strange to tell, not one of them 



ch. ii. J MRS. GROTE. 39 

was embellished by artificial colour, but all as 
natural and devoid of affectation as country 

maids The worst part of my foreign 

excursion is that I feel myself grown into a 
kind of Buonapartist, malgre mot ! In spite of 
my previous hatred of his vices, I could not 
withhold the tribute of applause which the sight 
of his improvements and benefits conferred on 
the city of Paris must excite in a candid mind. 
His talents must have been unbounded ! You 
are sure, if you observe some striking utility in 
a public department, to be told, 1 It was the 
Emperor's doing/ The roads are excellent, 
and you pay nothing all over the kingdom. It 
was he who abolished turnpikes, and made 
them the business of Government. Every creature 
who dares, extols his vast g-enius ; and even 
the very soldiers, who suffered most severely 
from his ambition, declare their devotion to 

him After this, what can Louis expect ? 

Not to sit steady, I fear. We saw him frequently 
— a great porpoise of a fellow. They are a pre- 
cious ugly breed these said Bourbons. They told 



40 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



us he did not give any encouragement to art 
and science, as Bon. had done, but was always 
thinking how he could advance the priests. 
Paris is, I do think, the most amusing residence 
that can be found, and at so cheap a rate too. 
Accordingly, I almost ruined myself in pur- 
chases. ... . . We were glad to find along 

the road how popular the English soldiers 
had made themselves. The people mourn 
their departure, saying, ' We loved them like 
brothers ! 3 " 

Mr. Lewin had meanwhile removed to a place 
called " The Hollies/' in the neighbourhood of 
Bexley, which he inherited from his father; 
and there her acquaintance with Mr. Grote was 
formed, whose father had a neighbouring country- 
residence at Beckenham. Old Mr. Grote held 
a tight rein over his ten sons, of whom George 
was the eldest. He wished him to marry a city 
heiress, and, probably, for financial reasons, 
objected to a connection with the Lewin family. 
It is true that Mr. Lewin' s ^3000 a-year was 
at that time comparative wealth; but, in her 



CH. ii.] MRS. GROTE. 41 

words, " he was water-logged with a family 
of twelve children/' The young people knew 
each other for three years, of which they were 
engaged two. During that time Mr. Grote 
commenced that discipline of her mind, never 
indeed subsequently intermitted, to which she 
owed that depth and fulness of intellectual life, 
which, far from quenching her natural vivacity, 
gave it new and worthier materials. Her rare 
intelligence required only a gentle hand to 
guide it in paths seldom followed by a young 
woman, and still seldomer traced by an ardent 
lover. He set her themes on various subjects, 
and gave her books to read, on which he 
required her to send him a digest. 

That this was no playwork is confessed in a 
letter to her mother in after years, in which, 
by a process not uncommon in gifted minds, 
she strangely understates her natural tendency. 
Speaking of one of her brothers, she says, 
" Emilius will never disgrace you ; but you 
must not form exaggerated expectations of his 
doing you honour as a scholar. The Lewins 



42 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



are not intellectual \ that is certain. They have 
a decided repugnance to assiduous labour. I 
feel it in myself, who am entirely a Lewin, and 
can fully scan the family propensities. Nothing 
less than the absolute necessity under which 
I have found myself to work at study, could 
have induced me to apply in the assiduous 
manner I have done in the last ten years." 

After waiting two years in vain for his father's 
consent, Harriet Lewin met George Grote one 
March morning, 1820, at a neighbouring church, 
where they were married early enough for her 
to take her usual place at the breakfast-table. 
The marriage was kept secret for a month, 
after which they took lodgings in Chelsea, 
and subsequently set up housekeeping at the 
banking-house, Threadneedle Street, familiarly 
abbreviated by her as "Threddle." Here, as 
she expressed herself, they lived in two worlds 
— " the ancient, and the modern/ 5 Plato and 
Aristotle on the one side, Kant and Bentham, 
and James Mill on the other, yet fortunately the 
latter world not inhabited by these alone, for 



ch. II.] MRS. GROTE. 43 

Mr. Grote shared his wife's tastes for poetry, 
painting, and music, and even played the violon- 
cello himself. They differed as to society, for he 
was both reserved and shy — she, as we have 
observed, neither, though awfully " stately," while 
little known. But her character in this respect 
overbore his ; for society, especially of clever 
men, gravitated towards both of them as by a 
natural law. The way in which the young 
couple affected each other was very remarkable. 
Each gave and took an education. He endowed 
her mind with a more solid basis, she fashioned, 
mounted, framed and glazed him. People would 
n6t have missed the profounder instruction he 
imparted to her ; she would always have been 
deep enough, and more than brilliant enough, 
for society, but without her he would have re- 
mained, socially, and in a publicly literary sense, 
almost unknown. "Mill, the elder," she would 
say, " had seized him at the most enthusiastic 
time of life, and narrowed him, under the idea 
that he was emancipating him/' His prejudices 
against rank and against society were strong, 



44 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



and she spent her life in dissipating them. She 
could do this with the more grace, because, 
when it came to pride and independence, she was 
every whit as proud and independent as he. 
" But he mistook great reserve on his own part 
for stoical principle/ 5 Her forte was her insight 
into character, and she enjoyed the curious 
anomaly of stern republicanism and shrinking 
fastidiousness in his. " Burning/' she would 
say, " with desire to see all his fellow-creatures 
equal, yet not able to exchange a word with a 
common vulgar man without disgust/' It was 
the great distinction and charm of Mrs. Grote's 
mind that it sympathised with every other — as 
long as it was mind. A choice society of logi- 
cians who met every Wednesday and Saturday 
in "Threddle" in the winter, at the dreary hour 
of 8.30 A.M., and broke their fast upon the latest 
emanation of the Mill brain, had her entire 
respect as well as her ceaseless quizzing. She 
nicknamed them "The Brangles," and sum- 
marized their subjects as " the quantification of 
the predicate/' and "the inconceivability of the 



CH. II.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



45 



opposite/' At the same time she made herself 
mistress of the leading principles of the science, 
and would turn them against any unwary adver- 
sary with great effect. She had indeed that 
sympathy with all classes which strong common 
sense and the faculty of humour give. Mr. Grote 
had neither, though distinguished by a sim- 
plicity, unconsciousness and unworldliness which 
she admired the more for not possessing them 
herself. She would have accepted the offered 
peerage without hesitation, though no one more 
thoroughly appreciated his refusal of it, or en- 
joyed the naive reason principally given. Alto- 
gether the observation of his character was a 
constant source of enjoyment to her. She would 
tell anecdotes of his utter unconsciousness of his 
own reputation in the most animated w r ay. We 
venture upon a few, for they contribute to give 
an idea of her character as well as of his. 

They were on a short visit in Cambridge. 
Mr. Grote wanted to see the Professor of Natural 
History, but he was engaged ; " dissecting some 
cretacea, or odder name; could not be inter- 



4 6 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



rupted — - strong magnifying power — powerful 
light — shirt sleeves up — would not be bothered 
with anybody." " But it is Mr. Grote." "What ! 
give me my coat, I must wash my hands " — 
transformed himself in a minute, and would not 
let him go for two hours. 

At Brussels, they went to the "Institut," of 
which he was member. It was the vacation, and 
repairing, whitewashing, &c, was going on. 
They made their way upstairs, " past pots and 
pails/' into the Library. Here the secretary 
told Mrs. Grote curtly that nothing could be 
seen — the place was bond fide closed, &c. She 
said, "But this gentleman is a member of the 
Institute." "Who is he?" " Cest M. Grote." 
"Quot! V Historien "Justement" He rushed 
out, changed his coat, beat up every official still 
to be found in the building, and they came in a 
body with utmost homage and put everything at 
his disposal. On leaving he said to her, "I wish 
you would not tell people who I am — I can't 
bear this fuss." She replied, " What have you 
worked for thus long ? Now, if I did not know 



ch. II.] MRS. GROTE. 47 

you so thoroughly, I should call this a bit of 
coxcombery." 

One more anecdote. Walking together in 
Hyde Park, there were groups who evidently 
knew him, and passed on the information to 
others, looking respectfully at him. Mr. Grote 
remarked it and turned to her, " Have I got any 
dirt on my face, Harriet ? Is there anything the 
matter with my hat ? " clasping that article with 
both hands. "What on earth are these people 
looking at me for?" " Because you are George 
Grote— that's all ! " 

It may be said that she worshipped his con- 
scientiousness, though frequently wishing it 
were less superlative. And dearly did she 
enjoy the saying — by Sydney Smith, we believe 
— " George Grote is a slave to a pampered con- 
science." Particularly did she grudge his time 
and attention to something called the " Brown 
Trust," an unfailing subject of her raillery and 
remonstrance. This was an eccentric endow- 
ment by an individual of that name for some 
benefit to animals, for which Mr. Grote had been 



43 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. II. 



left trustee — and which sometimes broke into his 
short holiday time and took him fatiguing jour- 
nies to town. "But if the old woman at the 
crossing were to leave him her executor he would 
be as punctilious as if acting for a duke, and 
perhaps more so." 



CHAPTER III. 



It is as well now to turn to the more serious 
side of her character. Her note-books — or, as 
she called them, her "Road-books," — com- 
mence in 1827, a year after the date of the frag- 
ment of her biography. They are not journals, 
written day by day, but rather relate groups of 
events and impressions ; working out, some- 
times, the large questions that came before her, 
and evidently serving the purposes of the utmost 
self-improvement. We see here at once those 
deep foundations of clear reasoning habits which 
rendered her so helpful to her fellow-creatures.* 
The very headings of the subjects dwelt upon 



* It was as early as 1827 that letters passed between her and 
Jean Baptiste Say, the great French political economist, on subjects 

E 



50 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. III. 



here — our peculiar system of legislature — our 
faulty administration of justice — English, French, 
and American politics — literature, art, educa- 
tion, farming, society, the opera, the stage, and 
all during a stirring period of our history 7 — cover 
more ground than any masculine record of the 
same kind ; for the woman's part is never absent. 
These note-books are no slight monuments of 
labour. When people wondered at her conver- 
sational powers they were apt to overlook the 
culture that supplied them, and the trouble that 
supplied the culture. 

It is curious, for instance, to observe a woman, 
in the zenith of her youth and beauty, analyzing 
the process and exposing the demerits of our 
system of grand juries, and entering her argu- 
ments against it with logical precision ; and at the 
risk of being thought dry, we feel it only justice 
to Mrs. Grote to give this side of her character. 



of profound commercial principles. In a letter from him, preserved 
in " CEuvres Diverses," p. 571, he says, "Pardon, Madame, si je 
vous park taut la Philosophic ; c'est la soliditc de voire esprit qui 
my excite." 



ch. III.] MRS. GROTE. 51 

It is obvious that a work by the late Sir E. 
Eardley Wilmot * had drawn her attention to the 
injustice that could, and therefore did, accrue, by 
the constitution of our laws in that department. 
The case of a boy named George Salmon — a 
mere abstraction to her — became the test of an 
analysis of cause and effect worthy of a member 
of the Bar. He had picked up a sack on the 
King's highway and carried it home, and though 
it had been restored to the owner, the boy had 
been committed by "a parson-justice" in War- 
wickshire for felony. Sir E. Eardley Wilmot, 
who was a magistrate, perceived the injustice of 
the committal and bailed the boy. But for this 
humane interference, which was virtually a happy 
accident, he would have suffered confinement for 
weeks with the usually hardened criminals of a 
gaol. She exposes to the utmost the injury the 
boy might thus have received, — the injury to his 
morals by contamination, the injury to his cha- 



* "A Letter to the Magistrates of England on the Increase of 
Crime," 1827. 



52 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. III. 



racter and prospects, the loss of his work mean- 
while, to say nothing of the wound to his feel- 
ings ; and the moral inadequacy of a grand jury's 
acquittal to secure a poor man from the stigma 
attending the mere circumstance of his having 
been in gaol. For the fact that the members of 
these tribunals are bound by an oath not to 
divulge their proceedings precludes all state- 
ment of the reasons for discharge, though these 
reasons may have been only of a technical kind. 
Thus the rejection of a bill by a grand jury is a 
very imperfect salve for the reputation of a 
prisoner. "Yet it may be said that, at all events, 
it does often spare a person the pain of appear- 
ing as a culprit at the bar, who would otherwise 
have to undergo this ordeal. To which, in the 
first place, I answer, that although it does save 
some, it does not save all w T ho are accused on 
slight grounds, as may be seen by the occasional 
acquittals by a petty jury. And it seems un- 
likely that the grand jury should discriminate 
between guilt and innocence, since, in the 
examinations they pursue, one side only is 



CH. III.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



53 



listened to — no defensive matter, either on the 
part of the accused or his witnesses, being per- 
mitted to come before them. Of course, there- 
fore, it must happen that, when a substantial 
defence can be set up, there must be a wide 
difference between the aspect of the case before 
the petty jury and that which it exhibited before 
the grand jury, and thus a prisoner may be 
deemed innocent by the one though already 
deemed guilty by the other. In fact, the ab- 
surdity of trying a man twice (which it is), and 
that by two sets of rules, is quite in character 
with the bungling system of criminal jurispiu- 
dence in England. 

"Again, why should the grand jury be better 
judges of the probability of a prisoner being 
guilty than the single magistrate who committed 
him r He had more leisure to examine the case 
than they have, and if he could not find out the 
balance of the evidence, they are not likely to do 
so. The advantage of a grand jury consists, 
therefore, entirely in the shelter it affords to 
single magistrates. If no grand jury existed to 



5+ 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. III. 



take the responsibility off their shoulders, the 
blame which might attach to a hasty and 
unfounded committal, would be saddled upon 
the magistrate or magistrates by whom it was 
done." 

Nor does her analysis end here : she pursues 
the subject to its utmost limits; exposing the 
inadequate number of judges at that time, the 
immense expense of legal machinery entailed 
on the country, the uncertainty, dearness, and 
tedium of our forms of justice, the encourage- 
ment to the lower tribe of lawyers, and other per- 
nicious results " which have no defence except 
in 6 that stupid reverence for the wisdom of our 
forefathers/ which is so sedulously inculcated/' 

At the same time, words uttered by Mrs. Grote 
and not forgotten by the hearer, show her 
equal judgment in an opposite sense. " Things 
which are right in the abstract are not always 
the best in practice. Our Constitution is a com- 
pound of anomalies, difficult to defend, though 
vindicated by successful usage." 

Mrs. Grote was always deeply interested in 



CH. III.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



55 



the questions of labour and capital, and many 
are those who have first clearly seen the rationale 
of these vexed subjects through her eyes. A 
few racy expositions occur in her note-books at 
the close of 1829 and beginning of 1830, which 
exemplify her modes of expression. " When 
every branch of industry is overstocked with 
candidates for work, the cry of 'find employ- 
ment ' is echoed from a thousand tongues. Now 
persons who employ labour are persons who 
have saved something, or who have inherited 
from those who lived before them, and who 
saved during their life. Therefore, in order to 
secure a perennial fund for the employment of 
labour, there must be continually a class, or 
section of the community who are laying by 
capital, or, in other words, spending less than 
their income. But to cry out upon people for 
not spending all they have is the way to cut up 
by the roots this security for the future employ- 
ment of workmen and workwomen There 

is in the Times newspaper a great deal about the 
extreme sufferings of the lower working classes, 



56 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. III. 



especially of that portion of them devoted to 
husbandry. The editor quotes Mr. Dundas, 
Chairman of the Berks, or Bucks, Quarter Ses- 
sions (I forget which exactly), as an instance of 
a gentleman feeling for the distresses of his 
country's peasantry ; and assuredly he is justified 
in awarding merit to such a feeling. But Mr. 
Dundas only reiterates the thousand times re- 
peated injunction on those who have any capital 
at all to ' employ labour therewith/ Why 
what else does Mr. Dundas think people of pro- 
perty do with the money they spend ? If they 
spend it at all they employ labour, for nothing 
is bought unless labour is previously employed on 
the commodity. 'But people ought to employ 
more agricultural labour than they do/ Well, 
suppose Farmer Miller takes on three more 
hands out of generosity, not needing them (for, 
if he did, he would already have taken them on 
of his own impulse), he has 30s. a week more to 
pay on Saturday night, and must forego the 
purchase of some other articles he would have 
wished for. But suppose instead of employing 



erf. in.] MRS. GROTE. 57 

more hands he were to save the money ? What, 
besides thrift and saving, can place a farmer out 
of danger of casualties, and falling behind hand ? 
It is reasoning in a circle to say first ' Spend 
more money on husbandry labour ; 5 but then 
comes the artisan and cries, ' the stocking- 
weavers are starving, pray buy more stockings/ 
and then ' the shoe trade is dreadfully fallen off, 
for God's sake wear out more boots and shoes ; ' 
and so the poor consumer is baited and hunted 
till he has bought and bought to please all, and 
at last, when the tax-gatherer knocks for King's 
taxes and poor-rates, he has been so kind- 
hearted as to spend all he has, and must give up 
his goods to the collector in lieu of gold and 

silver The idea of forcing labourers 

upon capitalists is absurd. You might as well go 
round a parish urging masters of houses to keep 
more household servants. The evil, alas ! the 
growing evil, lies in the enormous increase of 
candidates for labour. Since the practice has 
been discontinued of keeping and boarding 
bachelor husbandmen in the farmers' houses, 



58 MRS. GROTE. [ch. in. 

and thereby providing them with the substantial 
comforts of a home — without the mischief of 
having ten children at thirty years of age — 
population has made such alarming strides, until 
the clamorous multitude of superfluous labourers 
approach the tone of compulsion. .... I am of 
opinion that letting a cottar have a piece of land 
is good, but they should be told that they can- 
not have a cottage and land until one is vacant. 
It is not the cottage system which brought 
Ireland to beggary, it is the extending it too 
w T idely, and giving every spalpeen a house 
whilst he ought only to be a lodger." 

She took great interest in the form of education 
given to the poor, and liberally criticised the 
School Board. " I hold that the power of reading 
and writing, together with the habit of simple 
prayer, preluding to the studies, with equally 
simple religious maxims and Bible lessons, ought 
to be the limit of school-teaching at the expense 
of the public. If the parents wish arithmetic 
superadded, they ought to pay for it themselves. 
But i summing ' to the extent of the four elemen- 



CH. III.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



59 



tary rules is easily learnt, and a boy of ten years 
old ought to learn them in three or four months 
without effort. Education beyond these limits 
seems to me undesirable, because the boys of 
the labouring classes have to earn their living 
by farm labour, and in order to learn that 
business they ought to go to work at nine or ten 
years of age. After ten a boy learns to bear 
hardships less readily than by beginning earlier. 
If indeed the community are become too tender- 
hearted to contemplate these hardships as a 
necessary condition of labouring life, why then, 
the relations of capital and labour must be 
modified, and that by interposing artificial alle- 
viations. A cow-boy must not be exposed to 
get wet through, so ' the kind gentleman ' buys 
him a waterproof cape. A i kind lady 3 in my 
neighbourhood, compassionating the tedium of a 
herd-boy's day, provided him with a ' story-book' 
to aid in passing the time; forgetting that 
' Nanny' would bolt through the fence whilst 
' Billy ' was absorbed in his story. I observe 
boys employed to tend pigs in the acorn or 



6o 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. III. 



1 mast ' season marching about with umbrellas. 
Time was when they would run under a big tree, 
or get into a hollow trunk, or under a bank. 

" The boys of the present day are not cared for 
so well in another way as heretofore, however. 
They feed almost wholly on cold victuals, brought 
on the Monday morning from home, and eat 
these apart from the farmer's family. Feelings 
grow up of the nature of antagonistic interest 
between the boy and the master. The farmer's 
wife formerly gave an eye to the farm-boy ; 
treated him as one of the household; if he ailed 
aught a mess of hot gruel or treacle posset was 
made for him at night, and she would let him 
dry himself at the kitchen hearth in inclement 
seasons. Now the poor boy retires to the cold 
' back kitchen ' or the outhouse, munches his 
unattractive meal alone, or along with ' a mate/ 
and feels himself nowise belonging to the house- 
hold. This change I regard as one which has 
brought about a sensible deterioration in the 
character of the farm servant. The class of 
farmers, now chiefly cultivating other men's 



ch. in.] MRS. GROTE. 61 

land, is much raised above that of half a century 
ago. Accordingly, they dislike the contact of 
the rustic servant ; they live well, and do not 
like to share their luxurious fare with their 
inferiors. During the eighteenth century the 
two classes ate at one table. 

" It would be idle to seek to retrace one's steps 
in what relates to the march of production. The 
separation between certain classes has increased 
with the accumulation of wealth, and is an in- 
separable consequence of it. Many opulent 
farmers now give no * harvest-home ' — an ill- 
judged economy, in my view. Again, the habit 
of discharging a number of the men when hard 
weather sets in, instead of finding some kind of 
indoors occupation for them, is another feature 
of modern days which ought not to prevail 
among agricultural folk. The men fall upon 
the parish-rate for support, receive it without 
shame, and also without thankfulness, while 
their interest in the farmer who treats them thus 
sinks to ' zero.' i High farming/ in truth, is 
allied to manufacturing industry in these days — 



62 MRS. GROTE. [ch. in. 

a capitalist, ' a plant/ and skill. ' Food/ the 
commodity, produced out of the land by the 
combined action of the elements of capital, 
machinery, and men's hands. The vast scale 
on which these agencies are employed reduces 
each labourer to an insignificant unit, and he 
ceases to take that interest in the various pro- 
cesses of farm life which he naturally feels when 
he observes the close connection between his own 
work and its results, the credit of which reflects 
pleasantly on himself individually. — Journal, 
November, 1861." 

But though reasoning thus justly upon some 
of the causes for the depressed condition of the 
agricultural labourer at that time, no one felt 
more truly for him, or took a juster view of the 
real wrongs under which he suffered. She 
looked upon his degradation and misery as a 
disgrace to the land, and his elevation in the 
scale of being as imperative for the welfare of 
the community. 

The dwellings of the countryman, their clean- 
liness and repair, especially engaged her atten- 



ch. III.] MRS. GROTE. 63 

tion. " When he has tasted the comforts of a 
better condition, prudence and foresight will 
come to his aid ; and, instead of a reckless, 
swinish, demoralised pauper, we may hope to 
see a moral and accountable being arise. But 
the blessed regeneration, if ever it be prac- 
ticable, can only follow the diffusion of educa- 
tion, Not such useless matter as the soi-disant 
Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge pro- 
mulgate, than which nothing was ever more 
useless — 'the Polarisation of Light/ for in- 
stance — considering the classes for whom it 
was intended." 

The dulness and monotony of the labourer's 
life enlisted her sympathy no less than his 
ignorance. She was ever anxious to encourage 
active and rational sports, and often looked on 
the parties playing cricket on a Sunday after- 
noon on the heaths near her residence with 
benevolent encouragement. Lamenting the fate 
of a body of rioters and machine-breakers at a 
period of agricultural depression, she says, " The 
poor labourer is hedged in with prohibitions 



6 4 



MRS. GROTE. 



[ch. III. 



about poaching, Sabbath-breaking, the sinful- 
ness of music and dancing, and the wickedness 
of play-acting ; but as to the more important 
provisions of the laws of his country, he is kept 
in darkness till he incurs their penalty/' 

Any one desirous of appreciating Mrs. Grote's 
genuine interest in her humble neighbours, 
should read her article, "The Hamlet of East 
Burnham " * — literally, " the short and simple 
annals of the (unprotected) poor" — whose lowly 
rights, as in the instances she gives, are too 
often encroached upon, with no power of redress. 
To vindicate these rights was part of the prac- 
tical view she took of the duties of the higher 
class. She had the most generous of hands 
herself to all around her; but she pleaded for 
justice to the poor before alms to them. She 
pleaded for justice for all ; for another admirable 
essay, "The Rich and the Poor," sets forth 
the tyranny of the ceaseless demands for charity, 
and its inadequacy to meet the real evil. Her 



* Mrs. Grote's ' ' Collected Papers." 



ch. in.] MRS. GROTE. 65 

answer to M. Leon Faucher's " Etudes sur 
l'Angleterre," and to his appeals to the English 
conscience against the pauperism prevalent 
here, is a masterpiece of lucid and shrewd ex- 
position not so generally known (unfortunately) 
that we need hesitate to quote some passages 
here. 

"To begin with the most generally approved 
specific — increased charity. ' If the rich would 
only open their purses wider ! ' cry the plate- 
holders, ' we should hear no more complaints 
about want and suffering/ 'It is the indolent 
neglect of the poor by the wealthy/ say the 
Puritans, < which causes the dreadful spread of 
poverty and crime/ These, and a hundred forms 
of the same proposition, are as familiar to our 

readers as the song of birds But whilst 

we estimate the agency of charitable donations 
as a very inadequate counterpoise to the pres- 
sure of the general mass of poverty in a commu- 
nity, it is fair that the wide extent to which the 
habit of benevolence is practised in England 
should be placed in a strong light, by way of 



65 



MRS. GROTE. 



[ch. III. 



proving that the experiment has at least been 
extensively tried. 

" When indeed we look into the amount of 
what is given, without a shadow of return, by 
Rich to Poor in this country — not counting 
various services in person rendered by rich men 
— its magnitude is astonishing. Setting aside 
the enormous standing provision for sick and 
infirm (the result of endowments) and for 
educational purposes, an Englishman of fortune 
seldom has his purse out of his hand. He pays 
in the first place all sorts of legal demands for 
the subsistence of the poor — next, he subscribes 
to various public charities, also to ploughing- 
matches &c, &c. ; he assists poor dependents ; 
supports decayed relations ; he gives alms on 
the highways ; he drops money into the charity- 
plate at dinners, and after sermons ; he encloses 
five pound notes to the police magistrates as 
from ' A.X/ he distributes coals, clothes, and 
meat at Christmas; he gives land to build a 
school upon, and contributes liberally to build 
it ; he pays for the doctors of the poor ; he lends 



CH. III.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



C7 



to inferiors and never gets paid ; finally, he dies 
and leaves bequests to half a dozen eleemosynary 
institutions and humble servitors, and not un- 
frequently founds a provision for an annual gift. 

" The female members of the gentry class are, 
all this time, toiling at the work of benevolence 
in its domestic forms — overlooking schools, 
stitching sedulously at nightgowns and baby- 
linen, or at < fancy fair ' articles ; teaching girls 
straw-plaiting, lace-making ; hearing catechisms 
on Sundays ; tormenting their acquaintance to 
purchase the useless production of overabundant 
hands ; distributing soup-tickets ; —in fine, co- 
operating, with their gentle kind efforts in the 
grand and commendable purpose of mitigating 
poverty in the lower ranks of life. Go into what 
neighbourhood you will, the standing feature in 
every country residence is the 4 Charity' busi- 
ness. Where indeed is the rural abode where 
the visitor is safe from the bazaar or the sub- 
scription-book ? Is there a provincial dinner- 
table at which the topic of poor-law, board of 
guardians or the like does not take precedence 

F 2 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. III. 



of all others ? , . . . And all this on the back 
of a tax amounting to something like seven 
millions of pounds per annum ! 

" Such is but an imperfect outline of the 
1 charitable' habits of an English family of 
average benevolence and means, for we do not 
believe that anyone except a native of this island 
has any conception of the extent to which an 
Englishman's fortune and time are dedicated to 
the work of doing good. It is perhaps un- 
matched in the world. After this, one would 
suppose that the gentleman (or gentlewoman) 
who gives and labours in all these forms would 
be allowed to spend and enjoy the rest of his or 
her income, and attend to their six children in 
peace and quiet. Not a bit of it. 'Is it in 
human nature/ said the late Sydney Smith in 
one of his essavs, ' that A should see B in 
distress, and not order C to assist him?' The 
whole squad of humanity-foragers are upon him 
with their appeals on behalf of some species of 
misery which they have undertaken to assuage ; 
and, in fact, if we would listen to these eternal 



CH. III.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



emissaries nobody would have a moment's 
respite so long as any poor folk could be found 
lacking something or other, or a disease un- 
provided with an asylum. Under this sort of 
persecution the possession of wealth almost 
ceases to be a blessing, whilst the more whole- 
some sources of good-will and sympathy are 
vulgarized and transmuted into the most com- 
monplace of ties — the connection between rich 
and poor through the medium of the purse/' * 

No one more earnestly endeavoured to hold 
the right course between real and false charity 
than Mrs. Grote. She would have had others 
go, like herself, to the root of the matter, and 
endeavour to lift the beggar from the mire and 
to set him among the self-respecting. She 
writes thus to a friend (Mrs. Stanley) in 1851 
on leaving, after many years' residence, their 
country house at East Burnham. " The last 
of every thing is sad. This I have ever said, 
and ever felt, and my final incidents on leaving 



* u Rich and Poor," Mrs. Grote's Collected Tapers. 



7o 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. III. 



confirmed me in this conviction. The farewell 
of my humble neighbours was, however, the 
most touching* of all, and I could not but recog- 
nize the sincerity of feelings, which, it was 
obvious, had no reference to future expectations. 
Poor cottagers ! how much do your real virtues 
exceed the measure of praise generally awarded 
them. Knowing, as you do, my opinions as to 
the futility of money beneficence, I need hardly 
say that my relations with the 6 poor and needy ' 
have cost me but a small outlay of that. But I 
have given them what they estimate as highly 
perhaps ; attention, sympathy, counsel, and 
help in stress. And this is what rich people 
find it wearisome to bestow, even where they 
happen to know how to yield it, which, by-the- 
bye, is not very commonly understood/' 

Such was ever the tenor of this high-minded 
woman's discourse on these subjects. Who 
that heard her can ever forget her impressive 
words to an impulsive friend, too ready to be- 
stow alms? "Don't be slopping out 3^our money 
in charity — do some great thing." It is but 



CH. III.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



7i 



justice to add that she was as good and as bad 
as her word. She bestowed thousands to further 
a great object, but no one was more ready 
with the small gifts which she abstractedly 
condemned. 



CHAPTER IV. 



The biography of Mr. Grote sufficiently 
attests the ardent part which his wife took 
with him in the politics of the day, and in great 
measure curtails this chapter on the subject. 
Still, there are passages in letters and journals 
which convey her own more especial sentiments, 
which it would not be desirable to omit. Her 
passionate interest in the passing of the Reform 
Bill is a prominent subject. She looked on it 
as the great cause of justice and humanity, and 
fearlessly says, in reply to prognostics of 
popular strife, " I do not shrink from reforming 
principles because they may lead to civil war. 
If political freedom can only be wrung from 
its foes by war, it must even be bought with 
that price." " At the same time I am most 



ch. iv.] MRS. GROTE. 73 

anxious to avoid mixing up the sound opposi- 
tion of the Reformers with the vague lawless 
spirit of aggression which appears rife among 
the numerous classes/' Speaking of the days 
that elapsed (Nov. 1832) after the rejection of 
the bill by the Lords, between the resignation 
of Lord Grey, and his resuming office, she says, 
" I shall never forget that fortnight. So in- 
tensely exciting was the crisis that we scarce 
did anything but listen for news, and run about 
from one house to another." 

Few individuals can have entered into the 
career of a public man with the enthusiasm and 
lofty aims that characterized Mr. Grote — few 
also have had a partner so fitted to share, en- 
courage, and even advise ; for in this, as in all 
other interests of life, each was alternately guide 
and follower. The ardour with which they threw 
themselves into the parliamentary arena had 
something of the excitement of a first passion. 
On Mr. Grote's election by an immense majority, 
in her exulting terms, as " Senior Member for 
the Capital of the Empire," she writes in her 



74 MRS. GROTE. [ch. iv. 

journal, " I doubt if ever again I shall experi- 
ence the intense happiness of those inspiring 
moments, when I looked down on the heads of 
4000 free citizens in Guildhall, cheering, and 
echoing the sentiments which for years w T e had 
privately cherished, but which were now first 
fearlessly avowed/' Other triumphs ensued to 
the inflexible patriot at her side, but the hopes 
and purposes which first animated him were, in 
their very nature, predestined to disappointment. 
"The race is not to the swift." In after years 
she looked back with pride on the period during 
which Mr. Grote had occupied his seat in Par- 
liament, but perhaps with a higher pride on the 
reasons that had led to his retirement. It was she 
who had originally prompted him to undertake 
the History of Greece, and as the hopes of sup- 
port by his party in the accomplishment of his 
enlightened views (some of them fulfilled in sub- 
sequent years) gradually faded, she sympathized 
more and more in his yearning to resume that 
study which has made his name famous. He 
had done his best for his country, but failing to 



CH. IV.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



75 



succeed, his heart lay elsewhere. In his own 
words (February, 1838) "the degeneracy of the 
Liberal party, and their passive acquiescence in 
everything, good or bad, w T hich emanates from 
the present Ministry, puts the accomplishment 
of any political good out of the question, and it 
is not worth while to undergo the fatigue of a 
nightly attendance in Parliament for the simple 
purpose of sustaining Whig Conservatism 
against Tory Conservatism. I now look back 
wistfully to my unfinished Greek History." 

It is not surprising, therefore, that their faith 
in our forms of Government should have suffered. 
She writes thus to M. Leon Faucher — "August 
27, 1839. lh e tedious Session of Parliament 
here terminates to-day, and everybody is sick 
and weary of the name of politics. Mr. Grote 
and I, who formerly took so much eager interest 
in all that related to public affairs, now tacitly 
agree to avoid the subject, and have even ceased 
to hold much intercourse with those individuals 
who formed the circle of our friendships in rela- 
tion to politics. The examples of your country 



76 MRS. GROTE. [ch. iv. 

and our own seem to offer a decided discou- 
ragement to the believers in representative 
government at this present time. . . . You will 
conclude that our horizon is not much more 
cheerful than yours. Still, I do think you must 
be desperately mortified at having been so out- 
manoeuvred by your crafty King. I myself lost 
a bet on the coalition. I never thought he would 
break down such a formidable phalanx. We are 
w r ell pleased at the manner in which the ' Cour- 
rier Francais'* is now fighting the doctrine 
of electoral reform. Everything from your pen 
is more or less effective and thoughtful, and, on 
this subject, peculiarly congenial to our views. 
But how slowly do fundamental ideas get into 
circulation ! I see no hope for England or France 
whilst the ' Epicier' predominates as he does 
in both countries. All Governments seem to be 
secured by the fears of the timid trader. I fear 
we are far enough from any available revo- 
lution here. God knows whether any sound 



* The paper edited by M. Leon Faucher. 



ch. iv.] MRS. GROTE. 77 

improvement would be destined to supervene 
thereafter ! for the theories current among the 
masses are highly vicious and erroneous." 

And again, to M. Leon Faucher in December 
1840 — after a visit to Sir William Molesworth in 
Cornwall, when they made the acquaintance of 
other country gentlemen in that county. " The 
result of our visit was upon the whole very dis- 
heartening as to the state of mind which belongs 
to the upper classes in reference to 'La chose 
publique! The sequacious deference to the 
ministry of the day which everyone seems to 
pay, to the entire annihilation of all enlarged 
and sound polic}^ for future years, filled us with 
painful reflections. The attentions we ourselves 
experienced were exceedingly flattering and cor- 
dial, but we can never feel any very great plea- 
sure in the society of people who are destitute of 
the capacity of viewing the affairs of the world 
from any point but that of their own individual 
selfish position." 

Mrs. Grote's intelligence and interest, it is 
almost superfluous to say, were not confined to 



73 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. IV. 



questions of the day, or to changes in this 
country. She felt for other nations, as we 
shall see further on, as keenly as for her own 
fellow-subjects. In her opinion of certain foreign 
governments, and in her forecast of their pro- 
bable issues, as well as in points of home 
policy, she was a recognised authority, and 
may be said to have rivalled Madame de Stael 
in the inspirations which many a leading man, 
among whom a few still survive to bear this 
testimony, derived from her. It was a matter of 
course that she heartily wished "those bar- 
barians, the Turks, were thrust out from amid 
the civilised nations of Europe/' And she went 
further still. " The augmenting difficulty of 
maintaining the Turk in the possession of 
his European dominions seems an additional 
motive for sustaining the Austrian government 
as she stands. For if Constantinople is to cease 
to be Turkish, it would probably pass to Russian 
hands, and Austria is the only power through 
whose help England can prevent such a con- 
summation. Not that / ever did regard such 



CH. IV.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



79 



a change of hands with the apprehension felt 
by many distinguished politicians amongst us/' 
This was penned by her in i860 ; and as Turkey 
and Russia have persevered, " pari passu" in the 
same relative degree of malgovernment, it would 
probably have been her opinion still. 

A significant passage in her journal, as late 
as July 3rd, 1878, before the announcement of 
the appropriation by England of Cyprus, needs 
no comment. "My only disquietude arises from 
the fear of our undertaking to administer the 
Asiatic provinces for Turkey as a protectorate ! 
And also I am apprehensive of English annexa- 
tion of some kind ; whether of an island, or a 
harbour, or a patch of land, under pretence of 
wanting a coaling station, or a watering station, 
or a military depot, or any other pretext. Should 
we give into designs of advantage to England, 
we shall cut a despicable figure in the eyes of 
Europe, though the newspapers will applaud 
the acquisition as a triumph." 

Of Prussia, a country of her particular aver- 
sion, she writes soon after the popular outbreak 



8o 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. IV. 



of 1848 : "The singular feature of the Prussian 
agitation seems to me to consist in the absolute 

want of able men on the popular side 

A long continued pressure of despotism kills all 
healthy aspirations for liberty, and produces 
only morbid desires. Perhaps nothing short of 
a revolution can shake off her fetters. Varnhagen 
von Ense writes to us in profound despair of 
public affairs in Germany. He says the upper 
classes are far worse than the lower, and 
strive to perpetuate, instead of abolishing, bad 
government/' 

As regards other countries it did not perhaps 
require much prophetic vision to foresee in 1851 
that if Louis Napoleon were re-elected, " he 
will ride rough-shod over the French nation." 
There was more sagacity in the prediction in 
the same year, " he will, I think, seize on any 
fair pretext to give the Lombards a friendly 
help to rid themselves of the Austrian rule/' 

To the last Mrs. Grote carefully followed the 
course of French politics, and analysed their 
modes of government, and their public men. 



CH. IV.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



3: 



The following passage in her journal bears date 
November, 1877: " Frenchmen never will com- 
prehend Parliamentary government. They use 
it as an arena for conflict and little else. I 
have no confidence in Gambetta, and fear that 
he will do as Brougham did by the Whigs, viz. : — - 
frighten the country, without helping the parti 
de Vordre to consolidate the Republic. Between 
Gambetta and Henry Brougham much affinity 
is discernible in fact." 

Though Mrs. Grote participated up to a certain 
point, for she was no Republican in heart, in 
Mr. Grote's opinions, and identified herself in 
the measures he brought forward, she was far 
too finely balanced in her reasoning powers to 
be ever a mere partisan. " Party," in her 
words, " is the destruction of patriotism," and 
if by patriotism be meant love of country, and 
by country its people— a, definition no German, 
Russian, or Pole would admit — she may be 
said to have been the truest of patriots. 

But with all her reverence for Liberty, she 
drew stringent distinctions as to its proper 

G 



82 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. IV. 



limits. Deputations to ministers from the work- 
ing classes found no favour with her. " I object/' 
she says (Jan., 1878), "to the dictation of the 
outside public on matters of legislation. We 
seem to be drifting into Roman times when the 
agora was the theatre of political discussion, 
and the voice of the multitude directed the 
course of public affairs. It is enough that the 
working man has a vote for members of Par- 
liament — he cannot be permitted to send his 
delegate, and afterwards to prescribe to that 
delegate what line he should take on any given 
question. The working man is, I regret to 
perceive, overstepping his legitimate functions ! 
Deputations now beset the executive govern- 
ment in a way quite unusual, and with an 
air of authority urging upon presumption/' 
Order, to her, was " heaven's first law," and to 
her view the highest duty and distinction of 
man was to become what she ever professed 
herself to be " an honest citizen." 



CHAPTER V. 

We have alluded to Mrs. Grote's enthusiastic 
admiration for genius, though herself placed on 
a safer sphere of mental elevation. It was this, 
combined with her personal feeling for art, 
which led to what she terms " those important 
passages " in her life which connect her with 
the professors of the various forms of art. It 
is hence that their history — for Mr. Grote went 
hand in hand with her in the largest and most 
liberal patronage of artists and intercourse 
with them — presents a succession of curious 
chapters, associated with such names as Fanny 
Ellsler, Ary Scheffer, Jenny Lind, Mendelssohn, 
Adelaide Kemble, Chopin, Liszt, Lablache, and 
with almost every musical name of repute — not 
excepting even that of one belonging to a 

G 2 



34 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. V. 



former generation, namely Catalani ; from her 
contact with some of whom Mrs. Grote drew 
and pointed many a fitting moral. It would 
be exceedingly unjust to the memory of this 
noble-minded man and woman to omit the 
mention of one romantic episode which could 
only occur to two individuals of the truest 
greatness and independence of character, coupled 
with strong powers of imagination. The much 
misunderstood and ill-requited quality, or rather, 
passion of romance — that ineffable compound of 
poetry, generosity, courage, and trust — can only 
be manifested in its genuine form in the person 
of beings of high endowments, for the romance 
of fools, or of persons of inferior understanding, 
is, simply, folly. Such genuine romance in- 
duced Mr. and Mrs. Grote to take interest in 
the life and career of Fanny Ellsler, the " Dan- 
seuse" and of the little girl who was born three 
months after her arrival in England. We have 
ill defined Mrs. Grote if the reader do not retain 
in mind the exceeding courage of her character. 
She stood unfettered by any domestic ties, and 



ch. v.] MRS. GROTE. 85 

with one at her side as superior as herself to all 
conventional and worldly springs of action. 
Fanny Ellsler was of a low class, both as to 
birth and calling. She was sinned against be- 
fore she knew right from wrong; nor did she 
possess that class of mind which could have 
raised her above the debasing atmosphere which 
surrounded her. But she had that charm of 
beauty and grace, supposed to be most potent 
in taming the savage breast and befooling the 
wise one, and which, silencing the usual 
scruples, is known in her case to have touched 
many 'generous natures, and none, perhaps, in 
the nobler part so deeply and disinterestedly as 
the Grotes. They had too soon reason to per- 
ceive how uselessly their counsel and kindness 
were bestowed upon one whom Mrs. Grote calls 
" that demented Fanny." But their interest, 
meanwhile, centered in the child, one of the 
finest promise, whom they rescued from the 
atmosphere of the stage, in great measure edu- 
cated, took to their home, and only too much to 
their hearts ; for she became the instrument by 



86 MRS. GROTE. [ch. v. 

which the undisciplined and capricious mother 
could torture them. Morally and intellectually 
the girl was indebted to them for the develop- 
ment of a most beautiful nature, touchingly and 
unmistakably shown in after years by the 
grateful consciousness of her deep obligations 
to them. In the knowledge that they had saved 
from misery, if not from perdition, such an 
" time d* elite" they had their reward. "Little 
Therese," dowered with a small sum, of which 
Fanny Ellsler, in a better moment, had made 
Mr. Grote trustee — and which in the ignorance 
of her nature she afterwards charged them with 
embezzling — married an Austrian officer and a 
worthy gentleman, to whom she imparted her 
sentiments of grateful attachment for her bene- 
factors, She died after a few years, leaving one 
child, a girl. This young girl, Fanny von 
Webenau, was brought to England by her 
widowed father on more than one occasion to 
•visit Mr. and Mrs. Grote, and to her Mrs. Grote 
left a legacy at her death. The fact that such 
stories are usually not only too good, but too 



CH. V.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



pure and holy to be true, is the only reason why 
this incident has by many been vulgarly mis- 
understood. 

Episodes like this are, in their very nature, 
far more engrossing and exciting, in point of 
feeling, to the benefactors than to the benefited. 
As, in all relations between individuals radically 
unequal, and with the widest divergence in 
their views of life, the larger and well-ordered 
mind is sure to be the sufferer. Few have such 
power to inflict a species of torture on their 
fellow creatures as those parents, generally, 
it must be confessed, mothers, who, having left 
to any loving heart who will fulfil them the 
maternal duties they neglect, capriciously assert 
their right to resume the possession of the little 
being whom others have learned to cherish. 
Mrs. Grote writes to a friend in February 1845 : 
" The charming and gifted child whom we had 
cherished like our own for more than four years 
was torn from our arms last June, and the 
parting caused both George and myself cruel 
anguish, much augmented by our conviction 



88 MRS. GROTE. [ch. v. 

that she was destined to pass from Paradise to 
Purgatory, or haply worse. As this was the 
second time that we have been cut to the soul 
at having our little Therese snatched from us, 
without even the decorous formalities of the 
occasion, we resolved to yield up our feelings 
no more during the remainder of our lives to 
impulses of romantic beneficence " — a resolve, it 
may be added, better formed than kept. Later 
in life, and with fresh causes for disappointment, 
Mrs. Grote expresses the same sentiment in a 
humorous spirit in a letter to Mrs. Stanley : — 
" The investment we make of our generous and 
lofty sympathies, is, like every other investment, 
liable to the risk of a heavy loss on selling out." 

Few people, both by power and inclination, 
were greater benefactors, in the highest sense of 
the word, than the Grotes, or had greater ex- 
perience of that base return which " is as our 
daily bread." The writer of these pages once 
said to Mr. Grote, "parents are generally the 
most ungrateful people in the world." She will 
never forget the solemn emphasis with which 



CH. V.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



89 



he replied, "You never said a truer thing in 
your life." 

The generous reception and patronage which 
Mr. and Mrs. Grote extended to Mdlle. Lind 
was owing, in the first instance, to no such 
romantic feeling, but to Mrs. Grote's connec- 
tion with Sweden, the married home of her 
youngest sister, Madame von Koch. Through 
her and through her brother Mr. Edward 
Lewin, who resided for some time in Stock- 
holm, she first became interested in the Swedish 
Nightingale. In the autumn of 1845 Mr. and 
Mrs. Grote visited Frankfort on their return 
from a tour, and there made the acquaintance 
of "Jenny," and saw her in the opera of the 
" Sonnambula." The result was that Mrs. Grote 
formed the highest opinion of her powers and 
told her she was "every inch a. prima donna" 
and equal to take Persiani's range of parts at 
the London Opera. And she subsequently em- 
bodied this opinion in a notice of the new 
musical star — the first perhaps that appeared, — 
which she sent to the " Spectator/' Mrs. Grote 



90 MRS. GROTE. [ch. v. 

considered her the most gifted singer she had 
heard since " the hapless Malibran," though, 
owing to a peculiar and highly excitable, ner- 
vous temperament, unfit to cope with the various 
concomitants of a triumphant career. She had 
great reason to endorse this opinion in Mdlle. 
Lind's subsequent negotiations with London 
managers. It was mainly owing to the inter- 
vention of this distinguished lady and excellent 
woman of business that the accomplished artiste, 
after forfeiting an engagement with Drury Lane, 
was prevailed on to come over to England with 
a view to fulfilling an engagement she had 
formed with the Opera House. On this occa- 
sion the Grotes received her in their own resi- 
dence in Eccleston Street, at the door of which 
the benevolent hostess stood to welcome her, 
with no less a celebrity at her side than Felix 
Mendelssohn, then on his second visit to England, 
and about to bring out his "Elijah" at Exeter 
Hall. At a small dinner next day, where Men- 
delssohn and Lablache were present, "Jenny," 
in Mrs. Grote's words, " felt terribly nervous in 



ch. v.] MRS. GROTE. 91 

singing before Lablache, and indeed broke off 
in Mendelssohn's song, ' auf Fliigeln des Ges- 
anges,' in which he accompanied her. But pre- 
sently she sat down to the piano, accompanying 
herself, and sang ' Tra Lira, a Swedish air, to 
Lablache's manifest delight." The night that 
Mdlle. Lind made her debut at Her Majesty's 
Theatre, in the part of Alice in " Robert le 
Diable," May 1847, "I went to Box 48 as 
usual, and took with me Fanny Kemble and 
Sir Chas. Lemon. The evening was most inte- 
resting to us ; Jenny's triumph was complete — 
Mrs. Butler, after hearing her first air (' Va I dit- 
elle quietly observed to me, ' your young 
protegee is safe/ " 

From this day the same maternal care never 
relaxed. Parties were made for her in their 
town house ; rest and quiet were provided for 
her in their country house (East Burnham). 
She was chaperoned to great entertainments 
in and near London, and Mrs. Grote even ex- 
tended to her the aegis of her protection in a 
professional tour in the West of England. 



92 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. V. 



These were some of the services by which this 
lady evinced not only her admiration for the 
genius of the singer, but her kindly interest in 
the welfare of the woman. 

Through the kind offices of Mr. and Mrs. 
Grote, Mdlle. Lind had the opportunity — and as 
it unhappily proved but just in time — of making 
the acquaintance of the greatest of her predeces- 
sors in the vocal art. It was at a select dinner 
at the British Embassy in Paris, in 1849, 
where "Jenny" was introduced by her Eng- 
lish friends, that they met " Madame Catalani 
(alias Madame Valabrique), once so celebrated 
in England as a brilliant prima donna, as well 
as an estimable and lovely woman. In the 
evening Jenny yielded to the pressing request of 
Catalani that she would allow her to hear her 
sing, adding ' C est la vieille Catalani qui vons le 
demande, et qui souhaite vous entendre avant de 
mourir? Jenny sang the Scena from the i Frei- 
schutz' first; which I thought produced but a 
slender impression on the company. It did not 
fall in with their musical taste apparently. 



ch. v.] MRS. GROTE. 93 

However, she next sang < Non credea mirarti 1 
from the ' Sonnambula/ which excited lively 
admiration, and Catalani, who sat close to me on 
the centre ottoman, kept rocking on her seat and 
agitating her hands and fan, and murmuring ap- 
proval at intervals, such as " A/i, come e bella, 
Quanto bella e la musica quando si fa di quel* 
maniera> i La Carina^ &c. After this Jenny 
sang the ' Ah non giunge" and finally her herds- 
man's song with the mountain echoes, w T hich 
charmed everybody/' The trio afterwards dined 
with Catalani " who was full of agreeable talk, 
recounting her youthful pranks, her horseback 
adventures in Switzerland, and her wager of a 
foot-race at Lisbon with a Count or Baron Some- 
body, which he won by a very slight difference 
indeed. She related these girlish anecdotes with 
a charm and zest quite captivating/' But the 
" avant de mvurir" assumed a meaning little 
foreseen, as regards time, by those who heard 
the words. Only a few days after this meeting 
Catalani died from the effects of an overdose of 
laudanum administered by her doctor. 



94 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. V. 



Those who personally knew the great and 
gifted Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy during his 
many visits to England — how much there was 
to admire, love, and respect, independent of that 
in which he stood alone — will readily believe 
how natural and even inevitable it was that the 
warmest friendship should have been formed 
between him and the Grotes. Nor need we to 
be assured that no pain ensued from this " im- 
portant passage " in her life, except that oc- 
casioned by his early death. Their intercourse 
began in the London Season of 1844 when he 
soon discovered (as who did not ?) that she stood 
as much alone in practical kindness as in intel- 
lectual power, and aesthetic judgment. The 
Operatic w-orld has its necessary diplomacy, 
especially in foreign affairs, as much as any 
European Court ; though it has seldom the good 
fortune to find a lady of the best society, con- 
versant with the world, with business, and with 
art, ready and willing to enter into the negotia- 
tions and mediate in the treaties which precede 
the appearance of a new star. There was that 



ch. v.] MRS. GROTE. 95 

about Mrs. Grote which made most people feel 
her good offices, and they extended into every 
department of life, as much a compliment as a 
kindness. To the artist world especially her 
attentions were as flattering as they were sub- 
stantial. She sought their society as well as 
their genius ; invited them to the select dinner, 
as well as to the general crush ; and was always 
as ready to refresh them in the quiet of the 
Burnham Beeches as to display them in her 
town residence. For, with her strong good 
sense in the management of health, she knew 
the necessity of occasional solitude and pure air 
for the over-excited children of genius, and the 
recklessly-hunted objects of fashion. She pre- 
served a note from Mendelssohn in answer to an 
invitation, showing a day's work in London. 
"I should be most happy to join your party on 
Tuesday evening, and if I possibly can I shall 
not fail to do so. But excuse me if I should not 
be able to come. For I have on that day a 
rehearsal at ten — a concert at two — another re- 
hearsal at five, and a rehearsal of my St. Paul at 



9 6 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. V. 



eight, to conduct/' In a nature of the highest 
nobility like Mendelssohn's, so indifferent to 
adulation, and so sensitive to real sympathy, the 
appreciation of his art as of himself on the part 
of both these distinguished individuals was 
peculiarly acceptable, for he knew it to be, what 
artists feel to be so rare, a tribute with under- 
standing. As an excellent classic scholar him- 
self, he was especially gratified with the interest 
the great Greek historian took in the music of 
Antigone, and expresses in a letter, written 
shortly before his death, the pleasure with which 
he anticipates making Mr. Grote acquainted 
with another " Sophocleischen Chor> 3 in which 
he feels he has succeeded more happily in ren- 
dering the cheerful Greek character — (" der 
heitere Griechische Ton!') 

And in proportion w T ith their appreciation of 
•this gifted man during his life, was their esti- 
mate of the world's loss at his death. Among 
all the expressions of sorrow that arose, none 
did him the justice he would most have coveted 
more than the following lines from Mrs. Grote's 



ch. v.] MRS. GROTE. 97 

journal. Speaking of the immediate causes of 
his death — supposed to be the renewal of his 
sorrow for his sister's loss. " However this may- 
be, we have to deplore an irreparable loss in 
this illustrious musician, to whom we owe the 
most finished productions of a serious dramatic 
kind that the world has heard since Handel, as 
well as numberless charming compositions for 
every class of instrumental performance. His 
single songs too are some of them unrivalled for 
passionate feeling and science combined. Our 
sorrow and regret at his death are of the most 
poignant character, for never more shall I 
behold in mortal man so splendid a union of 
sublime creative-power, with the morality of the 
private citizen/' 

Mrs. Grote's knowledge of music was wider 
and profounder than that of the sister-art, though 
even there she obtained no small proficiency 
both in practice and judgment. Nor were her 
powers less generously applied to do justice to 
its votaries. Her life of Ary Scheffer remains 
no less a record of that great artist and inde ■ 

11 



98 MRS. GROTE. [ch. v. 

pendent man, with whom no lady, however high 
in rank, could take a liberty, and in whose studio 
no man ventured to smoke, than of the deep 
feeling with which she undertook the task. In 
her own words, " to portray the character and 
follow the course of a man highly endowed, and 
yet destined to suffer rather than enjoy, forms an 
absorbing occupation — and all the more since 
the life of Scheffer unites in itself the two streams 
of human purpose in which I myself take the 
greatest interest — viz., art, and political action. 
His spotless integrity, his great gifts, his in- 
flexible political principles, and withal his sadly 
sombre existence, combine to shed over the 
history of Ary Scheffer a mingled effect of 
admiration and pity." 

It was owing also to her exertions and libe- 
rality that the Society of Female Artists was set 
on foot in 1857. She engaged the interest of 
many friends, both in the form of contributions 
and patronage. But Mrs. Grote herself, with 
the late Mrs. Stanley— not to omit Mr. Grote, 
who became guarantee for the rent of the exhi- 



ch. v.] MRS. GROTE. 99 

bition-room — were the main and indefatigable 
workers of an Institution, which, however modest 
in its pretensions, remains active and useful to 
this day. 

It would be easy to swell the number of those 
engaged in art to whom this lady acted the part 
of a good genius ; but we have quoted instances 
enough. By this time the reader will have 
formed some idea of the numerous interests for 
which her heart and mind made room, and the 
amount of work she undertook, and never under- 
took without thoroughly performing. No one 
ever grasped objects more multifarious, various, 
and apparently anomalous ; but whatever she 
grasped she held. No matter who the protege 
for the time, what the study, how wide the circle 
of hospitalities, how engrossing the domestic 
duties (for two girls and a boy, children of 
Mr. Grote's brother, were brought up as their 
own), how frequent the journeys at home and 
abroad, how merciless the interruptions — and 
especially those of too frequent bodily suffering 
— no matter what the buying and selling, farm- 

H 2 



IOO 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. V. 



ing and building, repairing and altering — for all 
fell on her — the proofs of Mr. Grote's History of 
Greece, during a period of ten years, never went 
to the printers without her^ close supervision. 
The great heart, the great conscience, and the 
great order did it all. 



CHAPTER VI. 



In respect of friendship and frequent residence 
it may be said that France became for Mrs. 
Grote a second home. Mr. Grote and she in 
great measure anticipated that closer union 
between the two countries which the greater 
facilities of later years have encouraged. It 
is quite possible that her father's early con- 
nexions with Paris may, in the first instance, 
have entailed on her a few French interests ; 
but the main causes which led to their in- 
timate knowledge of French affairs, and friend- 
ship for various leading individuals, were of 
a political character and origin. The strong 
opinions held by both in contemplation of 
the necessity for our Reform Bill, contributed 



102 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



to inspire them with an analogous interest 
in the political condition of the French 
people. 

In the year 1830, when the Liberal portion of 
the Chamber of Deputies had (in March) so far 
overpowered the Ministerial party as to carry the 
Address to Charles X. expressing lack of confi- 
dence in his ministry — a measure which led to 
the prorogation of the Chamber — the Grotes first 
visited Paris, and formed acquaintance with the 
Says, the Comtes, with Leon Faucher, Odillon 
Barrot, Duvergier de Hauranne, and other Liberal 
leaders. Above all they paid a visit, which 
Mrs. Grote always reckoned as an historical 
page in her life, namely to Lagrange, the seat 
of Lafayette, near Melun. " This had long been 
an object of ardent desire on our parts — we 
passed three days and nights at Lagrange — 
memorable days too ! during which we both 
experienced an enthusiasm of political feeling, 
together with an exaltation of moral sentiments 
such as kept us all the while in a perfect fever 
of emotion. The venerable and virtuous patriot " 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE, 103 

(then 73 years old), "behaved towards us with a 
cordiality and kindness we shall never forget. 
He devoted himself, in fact, to our society, with 
the exception of one day consecrated to objects 
of public interest, when an assemblage of elec- 
tors for the Department of the Seine and Marne 
took place at Lagrange for the purpose of con- 
certing measures to secure the election of George 
Lafayette — the eldest son of the General — who 
indeed richly deserves the esteem and affection 
they bear him, for the arrondissement of 'Pro- 
vins and Coulommiers/ I shall long treasure 
the impressions I received from our sojourn at 
Lagrange. I was so filled with gratitude and 
admiration that at our departure I could hardly 
utter a word, for my heart overflowed at my 
eyes." She adds — " The evidence on the part 
of the people to obtain a better government was 

extensive and indubitable When we 

took our leave of Paris we felt a conviction 
that a convulsion in public affairs was at hand, 
and the publication of the famous ' Or don- 
nances' which reached us within three weeks 



104 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vi. 

of our return to England prepared us for the 
conflict/' 

From this time Mrs. Grote kept up relations 
of friendship and interest with individuals of 
political and literary importance in France ; and 
after the 'Coup d'Etaf of Louis Napoleon every 
man of distinction who abjured office under 
him may be said to have been included among 
their circle of friends. It was but natural that 
they should recognise her admirable judgment 
and prize her sympathy ; but more even than in 
England the vigour of her thoughts and the 
original manner in which she expressed them 
were appreciated in a country where conversa- 
tion is more a national art than with us ; and, 
it must be added, friendship, more a national 
instinct. She met them as an equal in letters 
and politics, w r as fully furnished to sustain all 
arguments on subjects on which the two 
countries essentially differ, and, as it proved, 
was able to convey even in a foreign tongue 
that ready vivacity and; power which were 
peculiar to herself. No definition does her 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. 105 

more justice than one expressed by M. 
Leonce de Lavergne in a letter to M. Alexis de 
Tocqueville : — 

Esprit clair et penetrant comme un homme, 
Fin et sensible comme une femme, 
Gai et serieux a la fois.* 

Her perfect familiarity with the pros and 
cons of our rural economy, as compared with 
that in France, especially opened to the political 
thinkers in that country a chapter which few 
Englishwomen, and fewer, if any, Frenchwomen, 
could have sustained. A proof of this has been 
given in the quotations from her article on 
M. Leon Faucher s "Etudes sur I'Angleterre" 
A propos of this article on "Rich and Poor/ 5 
M. de Tocqueville writes to her— (1850), C'est 
le bon sens des economistes Anglais , aiguise settle- 
ment et colore par V intelligence et rimagina- 
tion d'une femme — ce dont il a souvent grand 
besoin. 

* M. L^on Faucher gives an analogous tribute — Mais je vous 
donne ici mon jugement an lieu (Pattendre le votre, toujours sur et 
Sain, et qui donne a la raison la tournure piquante de Vinconnu. 
Biographie et Corrcspondance, vol. i. p. 108. 



*o6 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vi. 

Her correspondence with M. Leon Faucher, 
editor of the Courrter Frangats, and subse- 
quently Minister of the Interior under the 
Republic, and with his wife, is a specimen of 
those cordial friendships w^hich at that time, 
more especially, existed between a few choice 
spirits on each side of the Channel : developed 
on the English part by admiration for the 
galaxy of French intellect which then shone 
forth ; by respect for domestic virtues and happi- 
ness previously too little know^n ; and by intense 
sympathy for their national misfortunes. There 
were few harder worked men than Leon Faucher, 
and on occasion of his health once giving way 
she thus writes to Madame Faucher : — " Sept. 13, 
1842. We are only amazed where he found 
physical powers to sustain him during a struggle 
against difficulties, discouragements, and dis- 
gusts which must have exceeded all conceivable 
measure. The energy and untameable spirit 
which characterise your remarkable husband 
have doubtless furnished him with a sort of 
desperate ardour and courage, now and then 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. 107 

enlivened by arriving apparently at the brink 
of the desired successes. But the reiterated ex- 
perience he has now so dearly purchased has 
proved how unequal his comrades were to the 
enterprise he urged them upon, and dispelled all 
his long-cherished hopes of accomplishing the 
problem of representative government by means 
of a compact phalanx of honourable deputies, 
bound to concur in a determinate object. All 
combinations of individuals in the French Cham- 
bers appear like ropes of sand. Nothing short 
of the regular drilling of an aristocratical section 
will keep men from swallowing casual baits. 
' Outs ' and ' Ins 3 are the only classifications 
capable of acting continuously on men's imagi- 
nations. In French politics all manner of con- 
jugations among political parties are possible, 
and a shuffle of the cards may make a man's 
fortune. Hence the abominable shiftings and 
trimmings of your Deputies under the mesmerism 
of your great Operator/' 

Later in the same year she writes to the same 
lady: — "It will give us sincere pleasure to learn 



ioS MRS. GROTE. [ch. vi. 

that he has withdrawn from the feverish culture 
of political objects, and that he has chalked out 
for himself a course less fraught with moral 
nausea. It is painful to be obliged to wish 
honest men out of public life, but the truth is 
that under the present phase of your affairs in 
France, nothing good is likely to be accom- 
plished by an inflexible journalist, ill seconded 
by a fluctuating fraction of the Chamber of 
Deputies. I see all Leon's difficulties, and that, 
notwithstanding the reputation he has acquired, 
and the personal influence he exercises over the 
public mind, his usefulness cannot be now said 
to be a fair equivalent for the disgusting inci- 
dents of his position ; rolling up the Stone of 
Sisyphus, and losing his health, his hopes, and 
prospects of independence, at the same time. 
How r ever serious such a step, I still think he 
would do well to retire from public life, at least 
for a season. He can employ his talents and 
resources otherwise, and you will derive comfort 
from seeing him calm, and devoted to useful 
closet study. In fact, a man who can write as 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



109 



he can, should compose dooks, such as shall be 
read and re-read, instead of daily commentaries 
destined to pass into oblivion, how excellent 
soever/' 

It was no small tribute from Mrs. Grote to 
praise anyone for habits of precision and the 
performance of promises, and M. Leon Faucher 
knew the value of the following words: "A 
thousand thanks for the c Revue des Deux Mondes. 3 
You are one of three individuals I have known 
in my life whom I consider to be men of business — 
once a thing confided to you> it is safe. Many 
friends would go 500 miles for me, but not two 
would have despatched this commission. It cost 
trouble and pertinacity — voila !" 

The position of a journalist which M. Leon 
Faucher occupied was unfavourable to him, as 
to other French gentlemen of the same pro- 
fession, in his attempt to obtain a seat in the 
Chamber of Deputies. At Corbeil, in 1840 ; at 
Valerie, in 1842; and at Rheims, in 1844, his 
candidature, though on each occasion accom- 
panied by circumstances highly complimentary 



no MRS. GROTE. [ch. vi. 

to him, was unsuccessful. Later, in 1846, having 
meanwhile renounced the labours of journalism, 
he was invited to stand again for Rheims, and 
elected. The Grotes were then staying at the 
Chateau de Tocqueville, whence she thus 
writes : — 

"August 4, 1846. Dear M. Faucher, — I am 
so enchanted at learning the news of your 
successful contest for the representation of 
Rheims, that I must 1 let fly ' a letter of con- 
gratulation without any delay. In this feeling 
my husband cordially joins, and will, I believe, 
give utterance to it by the same post. Mean- 
while, I address myself as much to Madame 
Faucher as to yourself ; for your two hearts beat 
with but one pulse, and your triumphs are hers, 
no less than your vexations. At length, then, 
behold you safely landed on that shore towards 
which your efforts have been for so many years 
directed. You are now, indeed, 6 a public man; 5 
acting, instead of teaching others to act, will be 
your business henceforward. I feel no appre- 
hension of the result proving your capacity for 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. in 

political usefulness. The rare union of intelli- 
gence, mental activity, and probity, which you 
bring into that assembly of which you are 
become a member, can never miss its aim, or 
disappoint your partisans. I pray only for the 
continuance of your health, .... If you do not 
rise to a prominent station in your country's 
eye, it will be a proof that the best men in it 
are not the men preferred, which I will not 
yet believe possible. When I read a day 
or two ago the result of the first ballot at 
Rheims, I trembled for your chance ; Alexis, 
(de Tocqueville) also hardly expected you to 
win. Judge then of my joy yesterday evening 
when he called out, ' Faucher est nomme ! ' " 

In the same letter she conveys, with a touch, 
the impression of the ready stores of informa- 
tion which distinguished this gentleman, and 
at the same time gives a specimen of the familiar 
converse between Mr. Grote and herself. Those 
who knew them both will hear the two voices. 
"I often exclaim as we travel in this enchanting 
Normandy (we came by Abbeville and Rouen, 



H2 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vi. 

and by Pont Audemar and Caen), how I wish 
we had Leon Faucher with us to explain every- 
thing we do not know the reason of. He knows 
everything, from the make of a ploughshare to 
the date of a ' Tourelle ' — doesn't he, George r " 
"Yes, indeed, he has almost universal know- 
ledge of what concerns material existence, as 
well as intellectual accomplishment/' 

The death of Leon Faucher (Dec. 14, 1854, 
only fifty-one years of age) was a great grief 
to his English friends. Mrs. Grote continued 
her correspondence w^ith Madame Faucher, 
whose thoughts, as with most widows of emi- 
nent men, turned to some fitting form of record- 
ing his life. In this Airs. Grote's good sense 
thus expressed itself, while her ready good 
offices ultimately helped her bereaved friend. 

"Feb., 1856. — If really you discover that a 
biographical memoir of our lamented Leon 
cannot be offered to the public without risk of 
drawing down the displeasure of the existing 
Government of France, well, then I should in 
your place reserve the fiuMication of it until a 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



"3 



period when the truth shall be more acceptable, 
and capable of being told. But on no account 
would I delay putting the narrative in order, 
and collating the original pieces justificatives, 
so as to substantiate the statements made 
in your memoir. Once composed, under your 
vigilant and discriminating eye, the work will 
be safe against the contingencies which always 
attend protracted purposes ; and Leon's honest 
and enlightened course of political action will 
be traced and illustrated for posterity — perhaps 
even for our generation. You are as well aware 
as any one of the impression which is abroad, 
that Leon was one of the chief contributors to 
the ascendancy of the actual Ruler of France, 
and, consequently, that his labours, in organising 
the departmental regime under the Ministry of 
the Interior, were in the end productive of more 
evil than good. Under present feelings, there- 
fore, the great capacity displayed by your dear 
husband is regarded with a kind of jealous 
regret, which stands in the way of its true 
appreciation. It must be the task of his 



U4 MRS. GROTE. [ch. VI. 

biographer to show that the honourable and 
strenuous labours of the minister were guided 
by a pure desire to consolidate the Republic, 
and that no one felt half so poignantly as Leon 
himself the pain that was caused by the fatal 
transfusion of that regime into absolutism after- 
wards. In fact, as I have again and again 
affirmed, he was killed by the coup d'etat of 1851. 
That Leon was deceived in his estimation of 
Louis Napoleon is true ; but this error was 
shared by many of the most clear sighted of 
his contemporaries/' 

Her letters to Alexis de Tocqueville are of 
equal, if not superior interest, and extend to a 
later date of that humiliating period of French 
history. Of all the French gentlemen who 
obtained her friendship, M. Alexis de Tocque- 
ville stands foremost. They had made acquaint- 
ance on his first visit to England in 1835, when 
she thus describes him in her journal : — 

"M. de Tocqueville — a small and delicate 
looking young man — is a most engaging person. 
Full of intelligence and knowledge, free from 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



boasting and self-sufficiency — of gentle manners, 
and handsome countenance. In conversing he 
displays a candid and unprejudiced mind — about 
thirty-two years of age " (in reality only twenty- 
nine), "of a noble race in Normandy, and un- 
married. His companion, M. de Beaumont, is 
a large athletic man, full of life and vivacity, 
and of very agreeable conversation, but not so 
interesting as Tocqueville." 

Writing to M. Leon Faucher from Sydney 
Smith's rectory, Combe-Plorey, Sept. 3, 1841, 
she thus speaks of Tocqueville : — 

" Few lives can be more precious than those 
of thoughtful, patriotic gentlemen, amid the con- 
flict of meaner passions which political agita- 
tion is apt to generate. They act as mediators 
between the angry parties, and whilst they 
espouse the interests of the many, do not forget 
justice to the few. I admire his last work 
extremely, but not on account of its interpreta- 
tions so much as its observations, . . . Who but 
Tocqueville has ever gone below the surface of 
American character, or drawn general views of 

1 2 



n6 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI., 



the moral influences exercised by the peculiar 
forms of the political institutions of the United 
States ? 99 

It followed, naturally, that the friendship 
which ensued between herself and de Tocque- 
ville played an important part in both lives. 
No letters among the edited collection are fuller 
of that peculiar happiness of thought and ex- 
pression than those addressed by him over a 
long series of years to Mrs. Grote. He was, 
as is well known, one of the most fastidious of 
men, equally as to the conversation of others, 
as in the expression of his own thoughts in 
writing. He writes to her : — 

" Causer, est a peu pres le plus grand plaisir 
que je connaisse, quand Tinterlocuteur me plait 
— condition rarement remplie, il est vrai, et 
cependant necessaire- — car c'est en particulier 
de la conversation qu'il faut dire ce que Esope 
disait de la langue en general, ' qu'il n'y a rien 
de meilleur nipire/ J'ai fait cent fois cette ex- 
perience, et souventd'une manieretres-facheuse; 
car je ne possede pas en meme degre que vous la 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



117 



double faculte de retenir les gens d'esprit, et de 
chasser les sots." * — December, 1853. 

There was an identity of position between Toc- 
queville and Mr. Grote, taken as individuals, 
seldom traceable in the same measure between 
persons, not so much of different nations as respec- 
tively of the most genuine English and French 
birth and breeding. Both were men of letters 
and of studious habits ; each had taken part in the 
administration of his respective country ; each 
was in those circumstances which gave freedom 
of travel, of hospitality, and of literary re- 
sources ; while Tocqueville approximated nearer 
still to the English type by the possession of a 
family country house, and by his residence in 
it. The consciousness of this, and more than 
this identity, did not fail to strike Mrs. Grote, 
and in letters both to Tocqueville and his 
English wife, returned to her after his death, 
we find it expressed and expanded in terms of 



* Mrs. Grote prided herself once to Sydney Smith, on her patience 
in enduring bores — "That may be, dear Grota" (a name by which 
he always called her), " but you do not conceal your sufferings ! " 



u8 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



singular beauty. Writing to Madame de Toc- 
queville in 1 849, and hoping that public affairs 
have not interfered with the happiness of their 
private life, " a life/ 5 she adds, " so congenial 
with that which I have the advantage of lead- 
ing, and which seems to me singularly resem- 
blant with ours — without children — all in all to 
each other — the man a scholar, intellectually 
disposed and meditative, yet embracing the 
fatigues of a public function out of a sense of 
patriotic obligation ; fond of seclusion, and re- 
fined in his sentiments ; and fulfilling the gentler 
duties equally with the severer. Behold, my 
dear friend, a slight sketch w T hich may serve 
for both the virtuous men whom we are so for- 
tunate as to call by the sacred name of husband. 
This analogy in our position serves not unfre- 
quently to revive the thoughts of you and your 
dear Alexis/' 

She expresses much of the same later to 
Madame de Tocqueville, on the occasion of his 
accepting the post of Foreign Minister under 
the President (Louis Napoleon), in 1849 — an act 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



119 



which filled some minds with apprehension, and 
has been, as was the case with Leon Faucher, 
a lasting, however unjust, accusation against 
him. " Few have followed the thread of your 
aspirations, pains, pleasures, anxieties, and 
hopes, as I have done, and truly because my 
course has been in so large an extent similar in 
character. Both of us have poured our all into 
the more precious vessel, and have been content, 
nay proud, to efface ourselves for the sake of 
seeing another being shine more brightly. It 
is thus that the higher description of womankind 
invest their gifts, to drawback their rich reward. 
We are incorporated with natures worthy of our 
devotedness, and thus enrich our own without 
losing our sense of independence. But there 
arise occasions on which these intense sym- 
pathies touch us all too nearly, and when we 
vibrate under a disquieting sense of undefinable 
peril. The present moment is one of almost 
painful interest for you and M. de Tocqueville. 
The circumstances under which he has ventured 
to clothe himself with the functions of Foreign 



120 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vi. 

Minister, inheriting as he does the legacy of 
more than one political blunder, are certainly 
grave enough to inspire the minds of all 
thoughtful persons with sadness. You need 
not be told how profound are my esteem and 
respect for Alexis de Tocqueville, and therefore 
you can guess how ardently I hope to see him 
come out of these embarrassing difficulties with 
honour and credit. Still, I see much to inspire 
uneasiness in your bosom, for he has the double 
difficulty of a bad game to play out, begun 
unwisely, and intractable partners to -play with." 

But the terms of rare equality and sympathy 
in domestic circumstances which existed be- 
tween the friends only served to sharpen in the 
mind of M. de Tocqueville the sense of the 
humiliating contrast as to national conditions 
from the period of the coup d'etat. With all his 
experience and enlarged study of other coun- 
tries he fell short in that knowledge of the 
English people, which, it may be said, it is 
simply impossible for a foreigner to attain. 
Hence the distress and even resentment he 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. 121 

evinces in a letter to Mrs. Grote on the senti- 
ments expressed by the English press, and 
actually held by parties in England, in favour 
of the man who had robbed his country of those 
liberties which our own prizes most. A change 
in the tone of the Times, which he understands 
had become " Napoleonien a moitie" on the 
occasion of Louis Napoleon's marriage, had 
especially tried him, so much so as to evoke 
Mrs. Grote's most earnest sympathy, and to 
induce her to endeavour to allay this feeling 
with all the arguments in her power. We have 
said that nothing occupied her more deeply than 
to trace effects to their causes, especially in all 
things appertaining to national manifestations. 
It is as well, therefore, to give at length a letter 
of a most sagacious character, which peculiarly 
illustrates this, her favourite vein of thought. 

" History Hut, February 13, 1853. 

" Dear M. de Tocqueville, 

" Your letter of the 5th February 
reached me safely two or three days ago — 



122 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



thanks to our common friend E.* It has moved 
me so much that although my head be not alto- 
gether in trim for writing, I must try and place 
before you some considerations which you will, 
perhaps, find useful in surveying the relations at 
present existing between our respective countries. 

" At the risk of alarming you lest a thesis 
await you, arranged in the shape of a treatise, 
I will venture to set down my thoughts under 
distinct heads, and will take for the subject of 
my first the answer to your sad appeal ; why 
and on what grounds has our Press shifted its 
tone, and slided into quasi approval of L. N. ? 

" istly. We have now kept up, during twelve 
months, a pretty sturdy fire of reprobation 
against the usurpation. Both its principles and 
details, its crimes and its blunders, have re- 
ceived the most unsparing treatment at the 
hands of our leading organ of public opinion, 
the Times — the only important newspaper which 



* At that time letters from men of note did not pass unopened 
through the post. Those addressed to Lord Cowley by that channel 
were opened and read. 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



123 



has at all changed its language — and I think 
the ability and talent displayed in its hostile 
comments have been equal to any that it has 
ever brought to bear upon political events. Up 
to the period of the marriage the Times main- 
tained its inexorable tone; and on the subject 
of the marriage itself there is little doubt but 
that its directors would fain have persevered in 
their caustic remarks. But about this juncture, 
their own impressions and wishes were met by 
more than one counteracting current out of 
doors. I will particularise some of these for 
your information. 

" In the first place, the Englishman becomes 
tired of harping on one string too long. The 
railing against L. N. and his doings had grown 
somewhat stale as a leading topic. The majo- 
rity of English readers had had enough, per- 
haps more than enough, of his perjuries, his 
profligate disregard of honourable motives, of 
character, &c, &c, when, just at this moment 
of satiety, he happens to commit an act wholly 
out of the category of crimes it is true, but 



124 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



challenging criticism on grounds only recog- 
nised by the higher class of politicians and 
statesmen who appreciate the bearings of such 
affairs on the European world at large. On 
this occasion, however, the English people (ever 
wholly unrecognizant of Continental mysteries 
and red tape traditions) have certainly felt some- 
thing akin to an approval of L. N. 6 for having 
had the courage to choose a wife for herself, 
at the sacrifice of Lord knows what displeasure 
on the part of contemporary monarchs, and the 
censure of his own i parvenu 3 family, bent on 
consolidating their empire and dynasty by the 
recognised methods. Again, the plausible views 
which L. N. put forth in his announcement to 
the Senate imposed upon many minds ; and 
you must allow for the tendency of mankind to 
sympathise with a tender passion, quand meme. 
Well, this affair, turning aside the attention 
from L. N/s crimes to his private affairs, the 
press began to feel that to persist in its diatribes 
under actual circumstances would be to outrun 
the public sentiment ; and I know that for some 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. 125 

time prior to the marriage the Times received 
no small amount of remonstrance from its 
clientele in reference to its pertinacious bat- 
tery against the Emperor and his family. The 
necessity, too, of observing the dictates of 
gallant respect to the sex counted for some- 
thing with a journal aspiring to lead the tone of 
the great world. And the comments on the mar- 
riage were accordingly penned with moderation, 
and, as I venture to think, with judgment. 

" 2ndly. The English papers are not aware 
of the discredit attaching to the Empress on 
account of her mother's irregularities, or of the 
eccentric character she herself has acquired. 
Your press is altogether null as a source of 
information, whilst our Paris news comes 
filtered through an English pen, writing under 
constraint — though not, I believe, under bribes 
— and at the peril of extradition. The Eng- 
lish press, again, must not be held as reflect- 
ing the public sentiment in what regards 
foreign topics and events. There are several 
morning papers, some prompted by Lord P., 



126 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



who have all along written favourably of the 
usurpation, but you must not believe that they 
represent the feelings of their readers — they 
rather seek to influence and corrupt them as to 
foreign affairs, knowing how little the pro- 
vincials have the means of informing themselves 
on such points, and especially as to the feelings 
of the French people. In fact, but for private 
correspondence (and even that is difficult and 
fettered) we should ourselves feel extremely at a 
loss to interpret much that we hear and read of 
in France. You would be surprised to see how 
a letter from Paris is run after by our London 
friends, and with what curiosity the opinion of 
eminent Frenchmen is listened to in our private 
circles. The Public is taught by the Conservative 
organs to regard L. N. as the great antagonist 
of the extreme republicans (than which nothing 
can be more false), and as such entitled to a 
certain measure of forbearance and toleration, it 
not of a further stretch of favour. The exceed- 
ing ingenuity with which his partisans and 
organs have invested him with this mission, 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. 127 

viz., 'to save France from anarchy/ has told 
somewhat upon ' the party of order ' here, as 
well as upon the poltroon party of your own 
country, and it is not surprising therefore that 
many English people should incline to view 
L. N/s rule, odious though it be, as an evil of 
less magnitude than civil war. 

" I now pass to the other considerations, which 
(apart from the sentiment entertained as to his 
detestable course of conduct by our very best 
citizens) dispose us to use more reserve than has 
hitherto been practised in criticising the acts of 
your Ruler. We are extremely disquieted by his 
extraordinary preparations for war. We should 
feel uneasy and anxious even supposing our own 
armaments were tolerably efficient for defence. 
They are far from such, however, as all the 
world may know, and hence our alarm for our 
own safety. To provoke L. N. by unre- 
mitting censure and sarcasm would in our 
present condition — indeed under any condition 
— be unwise, inasmuch as he has the talent of 
persuading the masses and the soldiery that his 



128 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



cause and his honour are the same as theirs, 
and thus our insults against the despot might be 
adroitly construed into insults against the 
French people. This would serve him sensibly 
in the event of his seeking a pretext for war. 
It behoves us accordingly to say and do nothing 
which may afford a handle for saying that we 
have insulted France. Even the expression of 
our condolence, our respectful compassion for 
her present humiliation and servitude, might 
very well be distorted into so many impertinent 
remarks by your sensitive, irritable people. 
. . . . Meanwhile we entertain the worst 
opinion of L. N/s character as regards his 
propensity to mischief, and his recklessness of 
consequences. And we apprehend that should 
the old powers of Europe act in any way to 
wound his pride, it is far from impossible that 
he may proclaim himself the ally of the revo- 
lutionary principle, and fling himself into the 
cause of Democracy out of revenge towards the 
family of Legitimate Kings, who have 6 turned 
the cold shoulder' upon him. I know that 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. 129 

M. Thiers anticipates an interference in Italy of 
an anti-Austiian complexion, for instance. 

"Altogether, you may see, my dear friend, that 
as matters actually stand, the English do right 
to consult their own interests by observing a 
discreet tone vis-a-vis de voire maitre .... All 
that is urged by the Peace people of Manchester 
and their disciples about the interest of France 
lying in the maintenance of amicable relations, 
is now treated as it deserves to be, and we are 
no longer blind to the fact that Louis Napoleon 
will never allow considerations, based upon the 
real interest of France, to weigh a feather, one 
way or other, where his own passions or anti- 
pathies are in motion. 

" . . . . As matters now look, methinks the 
whole future of your magnificent country is 
clouded over — war must inevitably prove your 
perdition ; yet how can you escape war with 
a madman at the head of the Empire ? I rejoice 
to learn that you all disbelieve in the duration 
of this monstrous imposture ; as for myself, I 
never can make up my mind to regard what is 

K 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



enacting in France as anything but a lurid 
pageant. It must crumble to pieces, but what 
is the next change to be ? The army will be the 
arbitrator sooner or later, and will very likely 
come to be ashamed of the hateful role they now 

play." 

Mrs. Grote's own feelings, as expressed above, 
were never withheld, and never changed. She 
had derived considerable benefit to her health 
from the climate of France, and from the quiet 
seclusion she had found there, while possessing 
no country seat of their own, in a hired residence 
— the Ville d'Avray, near St. Cloud — where she 
had resided many weeks in the summer of 1852. 
Nevertheless, on answering the hope expressed 
by the Tocquevilles that she would repeat her 
visit in 1853 (which she ultimately did), she 
writes, "I hardly like to frame any project for 
revisiting Paris just yet. I feel such a repug- 
nance to the idea of coming amidst such a mob 
of money-getters and mountebanks ; such a 
hideous parody and burlesque of the forms of 
civil government, and such a sad spectacle as 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



the elite of a great nation stifled and oppressed 
by the despotism of the ignorant mass — such 
repugnance, I repeat, — that I doubt if even my 
love for my French friends will overweigh it. 
You had better come and see us in England. 
Your mind will be refreshed by the air of liberty 
you will respire, and your heart will be cheered 
by the manifestations of the respect which is 
borne you by the best among us." 

The materials for M. de Tocqueville's un- 
rivalled work, " Sur Vancien Regiwie" were 
partially gathered from documents preserved 
at Tours, near which city he established himself 
in 1853-4. So interested was Mrs. Grote alike 
in the distinguished author and his task, that in 
February, 1854, she spent a fortnight at Tours 
in order to discuss questions bearing on his 
undertaking. No individuals could be more 
conversant with the facts, and more meditative 
on the mysteries of the French Revolution than 
Mr. and Mrs. Grote. It formed the topic of 
many a thoughtful tete-a-tete. Hence the tone 
equally of sympathy and encouragement of her 

k 2 



I 3 2 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



subsequent letters. Writing to him previously, 
November 5, 1853, she says, " There is no doubt 
that the process of reconstructing, in the mind of 
a modern, a past condition of society, is a far 
more difficult effort than it would be to imagine 
one which had never existed at all ! A poet, 
like your Racine or our Shakspeare, could better 
invent a world and people it out of his own 
fancy, than a philosopher could rebuild and 
represent the framework which subsisted a cen- 
tury ago in your wonderful country. It would 
not be near so great an undertaking to do the 
like by England. For though we are, in our 
fashion, exceedingly changed since the days of 
the first George, the recollection of the antecedent 
complexion of society and manners remains well 
preserved. And so far from the English desir- 
ing to bury the past under the weight of its own 
sins, we cling to our traditions, and no topic is 
more attractive to the British mind than retro- 
spective glances at, and portraitures of the olden 
time. Now, therefore, 5^our task may well be 
regarded as laborious, and as one demanding 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



*33 



consecutive and even painful meditation — piecing 
out your faded web as best you may by the help 
of books relating to the period, and distilling 
drop by drop the matter of political illustration 
which you are to present hereafter as a whole. 
In fact I can hardly figure to myself a more 
trying pressure upon your intellectual faculties 
than that of the task you are engaged upon. 
To unite two widely contrasted forms of society 
in imagination, and not only to do this but to 
trace the influence of the antecedent upon the 
actual one, and that by those subtle threads 
which pass along the framework, like the electric 
fluid, often eluding" the analysis you would fain 
apply to the phenomena of cause and effect, and 
puzzling the interpreter to the very depths of his 
philosophic ability — such a problem is truly 
worthy of the remarkable individual who has 

set himself to work upon it And what 

can possibly be more intensely exciting to the 
meditative man than to be helped to the com- 
prehension of how feelings, sentiments, preju- 
dices, and passions work their way into common 



134 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VI. 



action. It is provoking to hear the rulers of 
mankind in their empirical talk, discredit the 
connection between them. I am one of those 
who believe that every considerable popular 
manifestation has taken its rise in a long- 
cherished, long-prevalent state of feeling. But 
the great, or, as you term them, ' les Grands, 
find it too troublesome to adjust their rule by 
the existing sentiment, and, so, affect to regard 
the popular tone of feeling as of no moment, and 
pretend that a government ought not to be 
influenced by it. Hence the overbearing of 
dykes at stated periods, the torrents of ill- 
directed energy, the ignorant and indiscriminate 
retribution exacted ; and this, the consequence of 
misgovernment, is erected into a warning not to 
yield to the demands of popular clamour, because 
when 1 the mob ' becomes an avenger, it uses its 
powder mischievously, forsooth ! You remark 
with perfect truth, that in spite of the enormous 
mass of memoirs which have been thrown up 
(like the ashes out of a crater) by the Revolution, 
as well as the vast number of works purporting 



ch. vi.] MRS. GROTE. 135 

to be enlightened commentary, and also the 
endeavours on the part of speculative writers to 
unravel the mysterious and terrible chaotic 
history — in spite of all such, the real, the living 
world of the 18th century has never been 
brought satisfactorily out — possibly because it 
has never been clearly understood/' * 

Again we find her addressing him again, Oc- 
tober, 1855, with equal penetration and discrimi- 
nation, at a later stage of the work. This letter 
was addressed to the Chateau de Tocqueville, 
where he had at length established his residence, 
and where he developed great interest in the inci- 
dents of a country life. " That you should have 
passed the summer in a comparatively fallow 
state of mind is quite comprehensible, and pos- 
sibly may ultimately prove beneficial to your 
cerebral capacity. As I have said on former 
occasions, intellects which occupy themselves in 

* Tocqueville's answer to this letter (November, 1853) is a con- 
sistent confirmation of the profound truth of her views: — Ct 
mo7ide qui a precede la Revolution Francaise est presque aussi difficile 
a retrouver et a cojiitrendre que les epoques antediluviennes. 



156 



MRS. GROTE. 



[ch. VI. 



original combinations, extracting from masses 
of other men's intellectual products the essence 
of thoughtful inductive speculation — such intel- 
lects, I say,- cannot work steadily; they work in 
jets, and can produce only under certain happy 
and favourable conditions. The close consecu- 
tive attention needed to unravel the past, and to 
cast together facts, events, and evidences, so as 
to support a train of preconceived explanations, 
and to illustrate propositions long fixed in the 
philosophic mind, such work as this can only 
be pushed forward when the spirit moves ; and 
your good vein will bubble up afresh ere long, 
never fear. Lavergne always says he cannot 
work in the country, and I understand why, 
when one is interested in the daily phenomena 
of one's rural existence. John S. Mill's father 
used to say it took him six weeks 'to get up the 
metaphysical state of mind' after a residence of 
some months in the country." 

It is evident that in the midst of such studies 
Alexis de Tocqueville avoided even the conver- 
sation he loved so well : — "November 23, 1854. 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



137 



St. Cyr. Votre conversation est un plaisir trop 
perturbateur pour que je veuille me le donner. 
Elle est Tune des plus agreables, mais aussi 
Tune des plus excitantes que je connaisse, parce 
qu'elle remue toutes sortes d'idees, et met 
l'esprit sur pied dans mille chemins/' 

Alexis de Tocqueville's death, March, 1859, 
was one of the most poignant griefs in Mrs. 
Grote's life. Her love and admiration for him 
were second only to what she felt for her hus- 
band. In her words: — "May, 1859. I am for 
the future safe from the disappearance of such a 
man from our sight. There is only one left 
whose death could cast me down so low, and 
God grant that I may go myself before him. . . . 
Whoever was honoured with the friendship of 
Alexis might be regarded as receiving 6 La 
croix d'honneiir.' " 

A friendship with the Bunsen family was 
another episode in her rich life, further cemented 
by entire coincidence of feeling regarding the 
causes which took him from England. She had 
expected a visit from them at their East Burn- 



138 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vi. 

ham residence, and writes the following chatty 
letter: — "June 2, 1853. The weather, though 
not summer-like, was fine and bright all the 
afternoon of yesterday, so that I kept listening 
for the wheels of 'the fly' till after four o'clock. 
After that hour I saw that it was hopeless, and 
consoled myself by reflecting that a far plea- 
santer visit may be looked for a fortnight hence, 
when the temperature shall have risen some- 
thing more conformable to the sun's place in 
the Ecliptic. 

" The ' Country Mouse ' had spread a rural 
board with cream, eggs, new milk, fresh-churned 
butter, water-cresses, coffee, and gooseberry- 
fool ! Well — the next chance may throw us in 
strawberry-time .... I have within eight miles 
of me the cottage to which John Milton retired 
to avoid the Plague of London, and where he 
composed his immortal poem of ' Paradise 
Lost.' It is perfectly well attested and the 
house preserved with care. How pleasant it 
would be to show the sacred spot to you one of 
these long summer days ! " (" Milnes wrote a 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



139 



Sonnet on it after accompanying me to the 
scene some years since, and it is not badly 
strung/') 

Further light is thrown on Tocqueville in con- 
junction with Chevalier Bunsen after the latter 
had quitted London, in a letter dated December, 
1854, addressed to Madame de Bunsen. Mrs. 
Grote had planned to visit the Bunsens at their 
retreat, Charlottenburg, Heidelberg, to meet 
Tocqueville, then residing at Bonn, but had been 
prevented by engagements on Mr. Grote's part. 
" It must suffice to tell you that I have felt truly 
disappointed at the failure of my scheme, and 
that my life has been entirely monotonous and 
unenlivened by even a home tour or a single 
visit. In short, I begin to regard myself as a 
near relation of Patient Grizzle ! . . . . The only 
person I have happened to see among those 
who paid their devoirs to the great man at 
Heidelberg is our dear Mrs. Stanley, who gave 
me a most captivating account of the whole 
thing — interior and exterior charms. I spent 
one long evening at her house a week ago, 



MRS. GROTE. 



[ch. VI. 



which, with another with Lady Granville, and a 
few of her habitues also last week, have positively 
formed the total of my achievements since 
August — I defy you to produce my match as a 
Hermit. .... I think I wrote to ' Excellency ' 
somewhere about the beginning of August last, 
explaining the obstacles which prevented my 
coming over and making one of the trio who 
had agreed upon a rendezvous at Heidelberg. I 
think I know the treat it would have afforded 
me to listen to those two distinguished men 
conversing together on matters of the deepest 
importance and blending their respective ideas 
instructively. M. de T. has always cultivated 
the philosophic and meditative vein, whilst your 
' Gelehrte 3 has heaped up stores of learning and 
historical knowledge on w T hich that faculty must 
be employed if it is to confer benefits on the 
intellectual world. M. de T. (as M. Bunsen 
would quickly discern) is not a great reader. 
Thus, he wxmld be all the more disposed to 
appreciate the vast resources supplied by M. de 
Bunsen' s wide and varied researches, and exact 



CH. VI.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



141 



and retentive memory. He was accordingly 
struck with M. de B.'s remarkable opulence of 
mind (for I can call it by no less a phrase), and by 
his adventurous speculations and theories respect- 
ing topics of profound interest to the philo- 
logical student, as well as profitable in the sense 
of enlightening the general reader. M. de T. 
wrote me a letter shortly after his conversations 
with 6 Excellency ' which I only regret I cannot 
without indiscretion hand to you for perusal. It 
would give you high satisfaction to learn, 
through this indisputable channel, how entirely 
M. de Bunsen had justified the high expecta- 
tions M. de T. had conceived of his political 
sagacity, and his rare gifts of mind as well as 
noble philanthropy/' 



CHAPTER VII. 

This sketch might have been much enriched 
by extracts from letters received by Mrs. Grote. 
No one possessed a larger or more varied col- 
lection. There was hardly a name of note 
which did not endorse sentiments of personal 
respect, as well as subjects of general interest 
addressed to her. The number extended even 
to such medical men, who, by her necessary- 
resort to foreign countries and bathing-places, 
had become acquainted with a patient of a 
calibre of mental power unknown to them 
before. A class of indiscreet literature, how- 
ever, at variance with her notions of pro- 
priety, made her anxious to obviate any 
possible misuse of letters in her possession. 
An allusion by her in a letter to Mr. Hayward, 



ch, vil] MRS. GROTE. H3 

noting what she feared was the growing pre- 
valence of this taste, thus concludes : — 

" Moral. — Since a literary executor is an 
imaginary character, properly speaking, no one, 
having important and interesting MSS., is safe 
in leaving them behind him." 

She accordingly destroyed all the letters she 
felt could offer temptation for the literary market, 
and among them a large number from Sydney 
Smith. We must, therefore, turn to a few more 
letters of her own, and of those too few are 
recoverable, before concluding this imperfect 
tribute. The thoughtful and philosophic side of 
her mind has been represented by what has 
been already given ; and, as Thought entered 
into all she wrote and said, it would be difficult 
to instance a topic in which it was not incor- 
porated. But in the short space we have allotted 
to this imperfect sketch, we are anxious to quote 
what may be called typical specimens of the 
many-sided mind — taking first a few to Dean 
Stanley and others in her latter years. 

After studying his lectures on the Jewish 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VII. 



Church, and the third volume of the " Prince 
Consort's Memoirs/' she says, "You know my 
propensity to pair characters, past and present * J 
(as with Gambetta and Brougham). " Well, I 
find that Stockmar had existed -B.C., second 
century or so, in the person of Aristobulus 
— see c Jewish Church/ Lecture XLVII. ' He is 
one of those mysterious persons of whom history 
speaks but little/ &c, clearly prefigured, eh r 

" I am assiduously studying my Jewish Church, 
for which institution, however, I find it difficult 
to get up any interest or sympathy. Moral of 
your Epopee. Judas Maccabseus corresponds 
with the lesson afforded by our Prince Consort's 
exemplary life. Both treated alike. Judas' name 
heard of no more. It seems to me that nobody 
survives except kings, w T ho have sat on a 
throne, and fighting commanders. 

" The history of Judas Maccabaeus is a striking 
example of the heroic-barbarous. As for that 
everlasting bone of contention, old Jerusalem, 
it is the most signal illustration of the term 
fighting for an idea, that I can call to mind. 



CH. VII.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



145 



"Colenso's queries as to how peoples and 
armies got victualled in the days B.C., recur to 
one's memory forcibly in reading the cam- 
paigns in Palestine. The host of elephants, too, 
why they must have eaten up all the forest- 
trees for subsistence. The curious fact of the 
ineffaceability of the Jews runs through your 
pages with a sort of preter-human tenacity ^ 
You must look at ' Knox on Race ' — anon — I 
will lend it you. I have been amused by your 
account of the solemn registration in c Stationers'* 
Hall' of the recognised Scriptures, B.C. 160 or 
so. The stamp, however, did not clear them 
through the gates of the criticism of a later age. 
Hoping to assist at the Feast of Tabernacles, of 
the 3rd," Sec. . > . . 

To the same. — "May 13, 1873. — I am deeply 
affected by the death of poor Mill. For a day 
or two after the news reached me, I really was 
incapable of busying myself with anything, and 
lay fallow, as it were, hoping the pain would 
grow bearable after a space, which [of course it 
has done, though I still mourn my old friend 

L 



146 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VII. 



deeply. I have during the last twenty years 
felt poignant sorrow through death of friends, 
and for four individuals above all — 

" CATHERINE STANLEY, 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN, 
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, 
J. S. MILL. 

" Ah ! the penalty of living to undergo the 
misfortune of seeing one's juniors go first ! But, 
again, had I not been permitted "to reach an 
advanced age, I could not have reared the 
humble monument to my partner, which you 
are so good as to admire. So in this, as in 
all other human affairs, all is ordered wisely. 
Amen ! 33 • 

And again : — " I send you ' P. Hamerton/* 
But pray keep it carefully till we meet again, as 
it belongs to H. Reeve, and not to me : I wish 
it did. Should you find leisure to look into the 
volume, you will gain thereby. The perspica- 
cious way in which two or three social forces 



* "All Round my House," by Philip Hamerton. 



CH. VII.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



147 



are expounded will afford you instruction and 
interest. See my 'finger posts/ on fly-leaf. 
Social philosophy has always been a favourite 
study with me ; and I am sure it will be time 
well bestowed if my dear poetical philosopher 
should find himself shut up with my book for 
an odd half-hour. 

" I saw yesterday, after a separation of 

three years. She was unbounded in her decla- 
rations of undying attachment, ' et le reste and 
we parted under engagement to meet in the 
Dean's garden on the 3rd. Both sincere, yet, 
alas ! both uncertain — I, from infirmity — she, 
from — you know what. 

"We had a most agreeable dinner certainly; 
and others among the guests said so too. Ah ! 
the one thing awanting! Thank God for the 
blessings remaining to me, among the foremost 
of which ranks the love of such as yourself for 
the ancient fossil, — H. G." 

Mrs. Grote had too much knowledge of her 
fellow-creatures to be ever extreme in her con- 
demnations ; and, especially, she had a kind of 

l 2 



14-8 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vn. 

philosophic patience with a class, known pretty- 
well to all who frequent society, to one of which 
she alluded in the letter above : — 

"Good Friday, 1870. — Your sketch of 
Mrs. is characteristic ; but she is not in- 
sincere for all that. That class never are inten- 
tionally so. It is the inseparable quality of 
i the species 9 to be always impelled by the 
humour of the moment, and to be led away by 
the chance sympathy of any one whom they 
desire to attract. They treat men and women 
as we do nosegays, valued for the transient 
sensation they provide, and then left on the 
bench without a regret. But the quantity such 
people get out of life is wonderful/' 

As a specimen of her justice in seizing upon 
the right points of aim in a character other- 
wise uncongenial to her, a quotation from a 
letter to Mr. Hay ward, Dec, 1873, may be 
given : — 

" I say, did you read Mr. Gladstone's 1 Eloge 
of Bishop Wilberforce' ? It was a real apotheosis. 
I see that nothing is so captivating to the 



CH. vil] MRS. GROTE, 149 

English mind as untiring energy. A man who 
never knows what fatigue means, is a king 
among men at once. But I own the Bishop 
was a remarkable example of well applied energy 
in the sphere to which he was appointed. He 
kept every subordinate up to the mark also ; 
and no sentinel could afford to drop asleep at 
his post, at least in the diocese of Winchester. 
The purpose being to quicken the religious zeal 
of his countrymen, no one ever laboured harder 
to promote it than the late Bishop." 

Again, " March 14, 1874. Mr. Gladstone's 
letter to Lord Granville is just like him. It is 
wise, discerning, and self-respecting ; but if 
you or I had wished to state our views, one 
fourth part of all this would have sufficed us. 
Nothing so rare now-a-days as condensed mean- 
ing a la Sydney Smith." 

It may be concluded from what has gone be- 
fore that with this lady's interest in all condi- 
tions of human life that of her own sex occupied 
a prominent part in her mind. Even the 
modern subject of Protestant Sisterhoods — 



150 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vii. 

viewed abstractedly — did not escape her. As 
early as 1856 she writes, a ftropos of unmarried 
women, as follows, to Mrs. Stanley. " Having 
no regularly defined circle of duties and occu- 
pations for practical employment of faculties, 
the poor mind and imagination must ' pay the 
scot/ and so become overwrought — one knows 
the rest. Many a time have I reflected upon 
the usefulness of Protestant Sisterhoods, whose 
lives at least could wear away without per- 
petual conflict with worldly temptations. What 
more unfair than to tie a living being to a post 
in sight of all manner of enjoyments, and 
varied curious provocatives ! Yet this is what 
happens to a single woman in civilized society. 
Accordingly, self must be crushed, if she would 
avoid anguish. The safe course is to engage 
in a course of self-sacrifice, which supplies lively 
emotions, even though they be of an ascetic 
character, and thus the individual escapes the 
pitfalls which beset the paths of pleasure. Think 
not, oh, maiden ! to put to profit the gifts you 
possess in any other shape. Well does the 



ch. vii.] MRS. GROTE. 151 

priest to enforce the doctrine that to suffer is 
the true duty of a Christian. If we women did 
not elevate suffering into a pleasure we should 
be left sans — all other pleasures being hedged 
round with thorns. These views may appear 
absurd, but they have been unfolded by years 
of close meditation, and I can trace the course 
of the analysis by which I have arrived at 
them as clearly as that of a river on a map. 
Everybody helps to bolster up ascetic doctrines, 
naturally, because the more sacrifices the 
greater the alleviation of the necessities under 
which all mankind labour. All human sym- 
pathy accordingly flows in the direction of self 
abnegation — not in that of enjoyment. Men 
sympathise with each other's pleasures, it is 
true, and why ? because men do not require self- 
abnegation of one another — at least not beyond 
a very moderate extent — vide Milnes' Preface to 
' Palm Leaves/ where much just reflection is 
apparent concerning the relative position of 
women in the East and in the West of Europe. 
" But here I am launched into a ' preachment 3 



152 



MRS. GROTE. 



[CH. VII. 



without intending it. Excuse the dyke bursting, 
as it is apt to do whenever I let my thoughts 
loose upon the condition of the oppressed half 
of the human race/' 

Now for a specimen of admirable common 
sense, founded on the profoundest knowledge of 
life, and available for the married woman, as 
distinguished from the single. The following 
is a passage from a letter to a near relative, as 
early as 1842 : " I am glad you lay my lectures 
to heart. It is clear that unless you turn over a 
new leaf your domestic comfort will be in immi- 
nent danger of being stranded. You have a 
good understanding and a good heart, and it 
would be a sin and a shame to nullify these for 
want of a little self-catechising and discipline. 

T is a man of very fine morality, based on 

the soundest views of human obligations, and 
you must not expect to have all the lesser 
amenities and ornamental qualities combined 
with the sober, rational, busy, citizen character. 
He treats you most kindly, but will not con- 
sent to take the exact impress of your habits 



CH. VII.] 



MRS. GROTE. 



153 



and tastes, and to reflect all your emotions. Be 

content, therefore, my dear , to trot along 

by his side, leaning on him for support and 
sympathy in the large concerns of life, and 
grazing as you go along to amuse your own in- 
dividual existence. The indoor eccentricities 
you must connive at, thanking your stars that 
he allows you on your side such latitude also 
for infirmity and caprices; and so no more on 
this topic." 

As to her stores of sympathy and wise and 
tender power of expressing it, it would be easy 
to fill a chapter with them. Many, besides the 
writer, know that instead of neglecting or for- 
getting a friend in sorrow, it was the time she 
chose to draw closer to some who had been pre- 
viously little more to her than acquaintances. 
This was the case with the family of the late 
Bishop of Norwich — to whose widow she thus 
writes after his death : — 

"Sept. 17, 1849. — Dear Mrs. Stanley, may I 
not steal into the house of mourning silently and 
respectfully thus, and pressing your widowed 



154 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vn. 

hand, tell you, without speech, that my heart 
has been full of you and your precious family 
since the fatal news reached me. Believe me, 
no one, having so little right to grieve for you 
and yours, has more completely shared the 
painful penalty of sympathy than myself. . . . . 
How few of us are ever permitted to rwn out any 
given course of life ! All human life is made 
up of chapters, short or long, as it may be. 
But few lives represent an unbroken volume ! 
And to new-cast one's newly modified course 
well is a touchstone of the real mental powers. 
To put out what vital resources may lend 
vigour to an existence sundered from its second 
self, and preserve it from mouldering away, is 
no less a proof of wisdom than of richness of 
endowments, and forms a better monument to 
lost happiness than a continual drooping grief — 
the resource of too many — who, with a thousand 
fine qualities, lack strength and self-knowledge 
— divine gifts ! One is the better for seeing the 
character of woman upheld, even through the 
agency of grievous trials. It is with moral dis- 



ch. vii.] MRS. GROTE. 155 

locations somewhat after the manner of material 
lesions — < Nature sets up a process! It is most 
curious to observe this great principle running 
through all the physical operations of nature ; 
and I am persuaded that an analogous action 
takes place in the mental system of sentient 
beings. Where life is, means of spending life 
must be found/' 

And again, to another mourner, having mean- 
while known severe suffering herself : — 

"April, 1867. And, dear Lady , are 

you growing more calm ? Are you settling 
to an isolated existence, somewhat more suc- 
cessfully than when I last talked with you? 
This is the capital trial of us, deep feeling, true 
women — the difficulty of living, when deprived 
of the consciousness of being a portion of 
another's life, and drawing one's vital existence 
from the united resources of both. This is what 
constitutes the severest form of privation which 
constant souls can undergo. You may, and I 
trust will, live to bear this ; but never will you 
lose the feeling which underlies all your actions, 



156 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vn. 

all your reflections. You know better than to 
believe those who tell you otherwise/' 

In no respect was Mrs. Grote's knowledge of 
the human heart more apparent than in her 
intercourse with a mourner. With the unfail- 
ing freshness she put into all she said, she 
called herself " a good affliction woman." In 
the first place, she admitted the reality of the 
trial, without which no one attempting to help 
— no matter in what — can be either just or kind. 
Then she dealt in no commonplaces on any 
subject in the world, least of all on that of deep 
grief. She knew that nothing could soothe which 
had not the ring of truth. There was therefore 
no prescribing this or that nostrum (which 
prescribers have never proved) for the cure of 
sorrow — no pharisaical reproofs for its supposed 
indulgence. Diversion of thought was given 
in the least suspected way : the languor of the 
mind stimulated by healthy counter interest; 
while as to cases where the anguish was still 
fresh, no words ever more truly hit the mark 
— " Let the wound bleed." 



ch. vii.] MRS. GROTE. 157 

Lord Jeffrey said in his old days, which were 
some of the gentlest and most affectionate that 
could be passed, " It is poor wine that grows 
sour with age." To those who have drawn a 
just opinion of Mrs. Grote's character from these 
chapters, it is almost needless to say that her 
declining years gave force to this axiom. She 
had traversed all the stages of life — the frolic 
of childhood, the mirth of youth, the strength 
and thought of middle age — and each stage, it 
may be said, " in character." And now her 
latter days embodied a store-house of all that 
had gone before, with the latest and ripest fruits 
added. She had deeply studied the successive 
lessons of life, and met the last and gravest 
with reverence and thankfulness. She grew 
gentle and tender, at no sacrifice of courage 
and brilliancy — more tolerant of faults and 
follies — even to the endurance of bores, without 
betraying it. She clung more to her friends 
and to her kindred, and became a centre, round 
which gathered the tenderest deference and 
affection. Perhaps at no time of her life, and 



158 MRS. GROTE. [ch. vn. 

in no society was she so unreservedly acknow- 
ledged as a power than among the neighbours, 
rich and poor, with whom her latter years were 
passed. All awe of the learned and formidable 
woman had passed away. The old and thought- 
ful resorted to her for discourse not to be had 
elsewhere, the young and simple for counsel, 
and for the same reason. If any one needed 
access to the higher powers for help and ad- 
vancement, they came to her; if sympathy under 
trial (only it must be real, not imaginary), they 
came to her; if advice under difficulty (with 
some intention to take it), they came to her ; 
if encouragement in a noble cause, they came 
to her. She reigned like a good genius among 
them. 

There is a question which some of our readers 
may expect us to touch on, and one which there 
is no reason to avoid. It has been said of an 
eminent ecclesiastic — happily still living — " He 
is not religious, only good ! " This points to a 
fatal severance between two things which God 
has joined together, and which no man may 



ch. vii.] MRS. GROTE. 159 

safely put asunder, too prevalent in the present 
day. But there is an ancient line to the effect, 
that " The tree is known by its fruit and to 
that test we safely commit the memory of the 
revered friend. For nothing is more certain 
than that in the practice of truth, justice, 
and conscientiousness ; in forgiveness of in- 
juries, clearness of moral vision, reverence for 
goodness, and grandeur of heart and soul, the 
life of this lady presents an example, which 
every professor of religion may imitate with 
advantage. 

Mrs. Grote died at "The Ridgeway," on the 
29th December, 1878, in the eighty-seventh year 
of her age, and was buried in the beautiful 
church-yard of Shiere. Bossuet said, " Ld> ou je 

vois un grand regret, j'eprouve une vive con- 
solation!' 

THE END. 



BRADBURY, AG NEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. 



7~v 




0 027 584 358 1 



